106 MEMOIR OF DR WRIGHT. 



specific in that formidable distemper, when I could 

 get lime-juice ; and I hope every ship in the navy 

 will be supplied with a quantity of these juices in pro- 

 portion to her rate. It not only arrests the disorder, 

 but positively cures it, provided the sick have a pro- 

 per diet of rice, oatmeal, portable-soup, and wine. 

 Ships of war, in my time, had no wine laid in for the 

 sick. But as the Commissioners for the Sick and 

 Wounded have now got the sole management, they 

 will not neglect this best of all cordials for sick sea- 

 men on shipboard. 



" I have carefully perused your extracts from Mr 

 Douglas Whytt's papers, but cannot find any thing 

 that merits the name of a discovery. Warm bathing, 

 and anointing with unctuous substances, are as old as 

 Celsus and Hippocrates, and have been practised, for 

 time immemorial, in febrile disorders as well as in health, 

 by the savages of America and the Negroes of Guinea. 

 On the coast of Africa the palm-oil is daily applied, 

 after bathing, as a protection from cold. In acute 

 feverish disorders, to depend on glysters would, in 

 these climates, be a fatal and dangerous practice. If 

 calomel be slow in its operation, he can easily increase 

 the quantity, and experience now shows to what exent 

 it can be given with safety and efficacy. The other 

 means he proposes for a reform in naval practice, were 

 long ago detailed by Lind, Milman, Trotter, 

 Blane, and others." 



Early in January 1 797, Sir Ralph Abercrom- 

 bie arrived in Barbadoes with a reinforcement of 

 troops from England ; and soon afterwards expressed 



