242 FEVERS. 



secretions, and is an usual assistant likewise 

 in a course of alteratives, is admitted ; but 

 how far it is eligible to gjive it in fevers in the 

 %'ery large proportions recommended by 

 Bartlet and Osmer, will be best decided 

 by giving the matter a farther investigation. 

 For instance, he urges the administration of 

 it to attenuate and thin the dense sizy bloody 

 during the effect of inflammatory fevers ; 

 this property of attenuation being allowed^ 

 what must be the natural conclusion or con- 

 sequence of giving such large quantities, '^ as 

 ^^ three or four ounces three times a day?'* Why, 

 every prof^essional man, knowing the mode by 

 which it must inevitably affect tlie system of 

 circulation, would naturally expect it to dis- 

 solve the very crassamentum of the blood, 

 and reduce it to an absolute serum or aque- 

 ous vapour. 



That yuVre has its peculiar good qualities 

 and salutary effects, when jor^^rf^-;?/^ adminis- 

 tered, no rational practitioner will ever 

 deny ; but the variety of experiments re- 

 peatedly made upon its efficacy, by the most 

 eminent professors since the practice of Gib- 

 son, Bracken, and Bartlkt, has undoubt- 



