MEMOIR OF DK WRIGHT. 41 



London Medical Society in 1779, and was published 

 by Dr Simmons, in the London Medical Journal for 

 178b*. 



As an illustration of the circumstances, and of the 

 general train of reasoning which led Dr Weight to 

 the adoption of this bold and successful experiment on 

 his own person, it may here be mentioned, that, in the 

 course of his practice in Jamaica, he had repeatedly 

 employed the cold bath in cases of tetanus, or locked 

 jaw, and other convulsive disorders. On this subject, 

 Dr James Lind, in the fourth edition of his Essay on 

 the Diseases of Hot Climates, page 271, published at 

 Edinburgh in 1778,* puts the following inquiries : — 

 " As the locked jaw most frequently makes its appear- 

 ance in warm weather, and in hot countries, would not 

 an immediate change of air prove the means of saving 

 the patient's life ? And where it is impossible to re- 

 move the patient into a cool air, would not some be- 

 nefit be derived from the immersion of the whole 

 body, or part of it, in cold water, adding frequently 

 sal ammoniac, or nitre, in such quantities, that, by 

 their continual solution, the water may acquire the 

 utmost degree of coldness ? Agreeable to this, my 

 friend Dr Wright has of late very successfully 

 employed at Jamaica, the affusion of cold water 

 on the naked body, in cases of locked jaw." 



The ancients were undoubtedly acquainted with the 

 advantages of the cold bath in this disease ; but they 

 supposed that its beneficial effects did not extend to 

 such cases as originated in wounds, or local injuries ; 



* The first edition appeared in 1768. 



