Revieiv. 177 



" In the course of my practice, I have seen above 

 twenty cases of Chorea ; a greater number than it may 

 have fallen to the lot of many to observe. I cannot say, 

 with Sydenham, that I have succeeded in curing all these. 

 For several of my patients presented themselves while I 

 yet employed tonic and stimulating medicines; when 

 my practice shared the common fate, and met with dis- 

 appointment. I am afraid, I may even sometimes have 

 done harm, by the indiscriminate use of the cold-bath, a 

 remedy not always suited to the exhausted and irritable 

 state of the victims of Chorea. 



" I now began to desert a practice in which I had lost 

 confidence, and to consider Chorea in a different light 

 from that in which it had been commonly viewed. I 

 conceived ^hat the debility and spasmodic motions, hi- 

 therto so much considered, might not be the. leading 

 symptoms of the disease, but might depend upon previ- 

 ous and increasing derangement of health, as indicated 

 by irregular appetite, and constipation of the bowels. 



" Under this impression with regard to the erroneous 

 opinions which had heretofore been entertained concern- 

 ing the nature of the disease, and the consequent impro- 

 per practice which I had employed for the cure of it, I 

 resolved to alter my mode of treatment, in order that I 

 might fulfil those indications which the new, and, as I 

 flattered myself, the more correct, view of the disease had 

 suggested. 



*' If my conjectures were well founded, the first and 

 principal object of practice would be to remove the con- 



VOL, II. PART II. y 



