66 History of a Case of Rheumatism. 



pies, containing a watery fluid, which, in a day or two, 

 filled with a yellow matter, and, uniting with other pus- 

 tules, would frequently be an inch in diameter, and con- 

 taining more than a tea-spoonful of pus. They were 

 attended with an intolerable pruritus^ and finally fell off 

 in the shape of dry, branny scales. 



But this new minister of affliction, although it had as- 

 sumed, and afterwards continued, in point of duration 

 and distress, was not to retain the ascendency altoge- 

 ther : and the heipes, which, in its access and decline, 

 had lasted three weeks, was now to be succeeded, again, 

 by the rheumatic state of disease, such as pain and swel- 

 ling in the feet, knees, and elbows ; and a chronic opthal- 

 mia, to which he had been subject, was now only trou- 

 blesome. The skin, all this while, kept pretty clear 

 from eruption, but retained a red appearance. This 

 form of the disorder rarely lasted longer than one week, 

 when the eruptive form was ushered in anew. An al- 

 ternation of symptoms being once established, though 

 unequal as to duration, was kept up with remarkable 

 uniformity : so much so, that the patient, without re- 

 collecting the time of attack, could tell, by observing 

 the declension of swelling, or pustular eruption, fre- 

 quently to a day, when the next form was to appear. 

 The bowels, during the first stage, were rather consti- 

 pated, but, for the last few months of his life, he had a 

 distressing diairhoea, which arose and declined with the 

 rheumatic form. 



His appetite, during the whole course of the conflict, 

 M'as tolerably good. Neither did foul tongue, thirst, 



