Trade-Winds, Rio Janeiro, the Polar Ice, &c. 199 



under a highly and peculiarly influencing atmosphere, notwith- 

 standing the strictest attention to the judicious regulations in 

 these respects, the prevalence of these disorders will not appear 

 at all wonderful. There were, I am happy to inform you, no 

 deaths ; on the contrary, from prompt and active treatment, and 

 the favourahle circumstance of a clean ship with large port-holes 

 admitting every possible degree of ventilation her position would 

 admit, the fever patients became convalescent in about eight 

 davs, and the dysenteric patients in about a fortnight or three 

 weeks at most. 



In reference to my mode of treating dysentery, you will find 

 it sufficiently exemplified in the subsequent part of these obser- 

 vations and reflections ; and in relation to my treatment of in- 

 flammatory fevers, I will freely confess to you, that it was on the 

 Sangradian principle, inasmuch as it implies promptitude in san- 

 guineous evacuations, and unrestraint in the use of tepid drinks; 

 with this diflference, however, that the drinks administered by me 

 were of a starchy nature, or of composing and refreshing virtues, 

 and were intended, in the first instance, to promote the speedy 

 eflfects of drastic remedies exciting the peristaltic action of the 

 glandular and seriferous extreme vessels in the internal coats of 

 the intestines. 



On this occasion, I cannot, by the way, refrain from remarking 

 that Le Sage's account of Sangrado is not so much a lampoon, 

 a caricature, or a satire, as it is a gross and scandalous libel 

 against the faculty in general. This, I think, is fully evinced in 

 his invectives throughout the whole of his justly celebrated Gil 

 Bias, in the evidently falsified statement of deaths, occasioned 

 not by him alone, but i)y physicians in general, that could be 

 written witli the view only of dishonouring the profession, and in 

 the opproljrious epithet I)estowed on the ostensible personage in 

 that work, his object of attack on every possible occasion. As 

 the S|)aniards are remarkable for native intellect, it is not un- 

 reasonable to suppose that Sangrado, perhaps, was some great 

 and original genius, whose conspicuity of character alone subjected 

 him to the libellous denunciation so artfully displayed by this 

 writer, notwithstanding his prefatory asseveration to the contrary, 

 and to which he could have been incited only by the prevailing 

 ignorance or prejudice of the times ; a prejudice that pervaded 

 even the monastic orders of both sexes, among whom an un- 

 willingness to admit any of the laity, however (jualified, to inspect 

 into their complaints, or to administer to their relief, vyas inva- 

 riably manifested ; since with Le Sage's libel, in many instances 

 notori:)usly ludicrtnis, not a few of the monks of that lime vainly 

 cooperated with their stillborn censure j whose motives are con- 

 ceivable, but may not be expressed. 



N 4 Cervantes, 



