174 MEMOIR OF DR WRIGHT. 



boured, in many cases, to inculcate the doctrine, that 

 nature was fully adequate to the performance of the 

 cure, if left to her own free agency. In fever, while 

 he reprobated the practical introduction of the theory 

 of non-contagion, he was foremost in recurring to that 

 cool mode of treatment, which happily since his time has 

 been generally adopted as a rule of practice. There are 

 few indeed so hardy, at the present day, as to dispute 

 the advantages of an airy and well ventilated apart- 

 ment, in preference to the hot, close room in which it 

 was formerly the hard lot of a patient to be " cabin'd, 

 cribbed, confined." But it is to be feared, that, prac- 

 tically speaking, sufficient attention has not even yet 

 been paid to the subject ; and that the use of the 

 bath, for the prevention or the cure of fever, is still too 

 much neglected. 



The intrepidity of Dr Wright's practice overcame 

 another professional prejudice regarding the use of ca- 

 lomel, and other mercurial preparations. In place of 

 beino: deterred from the exhibition of these active 

 agents, while he was employing the cold affusion, he 

 found this powerful mineral more subject to controul, 

 and, when administered in less than ordinary propor- 

 tions, even more effective and more safe, under the use 

 of the cold bath, than without it ; by the greater cer- 

 tainty of its operation on the extreme arteries and ex- 

 cretories during the abatement of the symptoms, oc- 

 casioned by the abstraction of morbid heat. Conges- 

 tions in the viscera, and the consequent idea of in- 

 flammation, were thus obviated or removed, and the 

 free use of the lancet, a practice which he deeply de- 



