262 Memorandums of the Practice 



medicine, and in this way ameliorate the condition of 

 humanity. 



All the varieties of fever, he said, were but one dis- 

 ease ; and this disease consisted in kl a ji re at the vi- 

 tals." The method of curing fever, he was generous 

 enough to communicate to every body. This method 

 Mas simple and easy, being nothing more than, by 

 means of medicines, to kindle another fire at the vitals, 

 superior in force to the first, and thus to drive or com- 

 pel it to go out at the pores. If this plan, in any in- 

 stance, should fail, the application of heat externally 

 would invite the fire to the surface; so that, by the 

 combined operation of the internal medicinal fire, and 

 the external artificial heat, the fever would, most cer- 

 tainly, be obliged to quit the patient. 



His Materia Medica consisted in the pulverized tops 

 of the Lobelia (syphilitica?), the powdered root of the 

 Marsh-rosemary, and the essences of some of the aro- 

 matic and stimulating plants, as Golden- rod, Fennel, 

 Patridge-bush (which last was a great favourite with 

 him), the Mints, Mustard, and Horse-radish. 



When called to prescribe for a patient, he always co- 

 vered him closely in bed with a great ma^s of clothes, 

 and gave him a tea- spoonful of the powdered lobelia, in 

 a table- spoonful of rum or brandy. It generally pro- 

 duced instant vomiting. He then gave one or more of 

 his essences, in pretty free doses, and in conjunction 

 with large draughts of the decoction of the rosemary. If 

 this course did not soon produce profuse sweating, he 



