344 Essay on the Remittent and Intermittent Diseases. 



Another illustration of the pernicious effects of this mode of treat- 

 ment deserv^es a conspicuous place. 



In a case of opthalmia occurring with intermittent, Dr. M'C- had 

 almost daily an opportunity of ohserving the progress of the disease, 

 and the effect of remedies, without being permitted to interfere in 

 the practice, the patient being under the care of an oculist of high 

 reputation. The patient was seized in the first place with regular 

 intermittent, accompanied with pain in the face, and tooth ache, the 

 pains intermitting regularly with the fever. After a short time the 

 pain seized the temple followed by a tolerably severe opthalmia. 

 The quotidian cold stage, the pain in the temple and the contraction 

 of the iris were equally periodical and regular, lasting a determinate 

 number of hours. He explained his views of the case to the oculist, 

 and proposed a method of cure, but his suggestions were not atten- 

 ded to, and from that time he adds, " I could only watch the progress 

 of the case for instruciionJ' " The first effect of local bleeding, blis- 

 tering and topical applications, was a great increase of inflamma- 

 tion, and as the same means were continued and repeated, the disor- 

 der became daily more severe, while the local pain increasing in se- 

 verity and extent, and the intermittent becoming much more strongly 

 marked, it was declared that there was a flow of blood to the head. 

 General blood letting from a vein, together with that from die tempo- 

 ral artery was therefore adopted and repeated, while after a certain 

 progress in this practice, aided by more topical remedies, more purg- 

 ing and more low diet, the patient became so ill as to be unable to 

 attend the occulist, and was sent to the hospital. These operations 

 occupied about two months. After this I was cut off from seeing 

 him, but I ascertained that he was laboring under an inveterate quoti- 

 dian intermittent with a pain (neuralgia) in the temple which left 

 him no repose, extreme debility, witli nerv^ous affecdons, and a parual 

 fatuity, while the inflammation was such as to extend to the bottom 

 of the eye, from the effect of the excessive and constant pain, and 

 total bhndness had resulted on that side from the closing of the 

 iris. In the hospital all this justified more bleeding, and more of ev- 

 «ry thing which had already proved so injurious, while tlie disease 

 persevered without alteradon except for the worse during three months, 

 when the gradually increasing fatuity became a mania, and the patient 

 attempted to destroy himself by cutting his throat. The attempt was 

 unsuccessful, and after the wound was healed he was sent home to 

 be transferred to the lunatic asylum. Durlno; this interval I was en- 



