in the Treatment of Yellow- Fever, 147 



The success of this practice I frequently witnessed. 

 After it became public, heads of families often cured 

 their domestics themselves, by pursuing it. The ene- 

 mies of the practice alleged, that, where it succeeded, 

 colds, and slight cases of fever, depending on obstructed 

 perspiration, were uniformly mistaken for Yellow-Fer 

 ver; but I had abundant opportunities of convincing 

 myself that this allegation was not true. Besides, appa- 

 rently slight cases, as I have already remarked, left to 

 themselves, soon ended in evident Yellow- Fever, and 

 death. 



Either from a belief that it was unequal to the cure, 

 or from some other cause, very few of the physicians 

 gave the Snake-root a trial. Dr. David Ramsay 

 thought favourably of it, but used it in only two or 

 three cases, and then along with other medicines. The 

 cases terminated favourably. In a letter lately received 

 from him, he says, " It (Seneka) is always a powerful 

 auxiliary, sometimes radically curative; but I would 

 not be for relying on it exclusively, in seriously dan- 

 gerous cases." 



How much of truth there may be in Dr. Furman's 

 opinion, that, in curing, the Seneka acts as a specific, at 

 least in part, I shall not undertake to determine. That 

 it is a medicine of very considerable powers, all who 

 have experience of its virtues readily acknowledge. 

 This vegetable mercurial has salivated; and it is well 

 known to be sudorific, diuretic, emetic, and cathartic. 



