260" On the Efficacy of Blisters, 



The third case, as given me by a gentleman of good 

 standing, is to this amount : that some months ago, I 



do not recollect the date, his patient, J E , 



got drunk, and burnt his leg badly, by falling in the 

 fire ; the part mortified. He gave cinchona, opium, 

 8cc, &c, and applied a blister, which soon, as he said, 

 arrested the progress of the mortification, and the pa- 

 tient did well. 



I have many reasons to be attached to the blister ; 

 but, however high my present opinion of them in mor- 

 tification, I am ready, at any time, to relinquish that 

 opinion, when repeated trials are made, and it should 

 be found unsuccessful in any. I was early attached to 

 them as a remedy in many complaints, and from their 

 good effect, often, when I did not expect much, has 

 given me a kind of professional prejudice in their fa- 

 vour, which physicians are too apt to be governed by : 

 but my prejudice only extends to them, as a very valu- 

 able article of Materia Medica, notwithstanding many 

 opprobrious epithets, as " extreme unction," &c, 8cc. 

 I must, however, in this place, acknowledge, that I 

 was first induced to try this remedy, from a statement 

 made by Dr. Physick to his class, of its success in 

 his hands, and confirmed by a letter from Dr. Rush 

 to him, on that subject. Added to this, I was the 

 more sanguine of success, as I have seen much on the 

 efficacy of blisters. Some, indeed, I did not believe, 

 and only viewed as hypothesis, until it was confirmed 

 by the authority of Dr. Physick. I here allude to the 

 practice of medicine in the East-Indies, anterior to the 

 publication of Dr. Lind's Essay on the Diseases of 



