506 PRACTICE OF PHYSIC. 



out affording us any grounds for imagining that the bile had 

 any concern in the case of fever. Notwithstanding this opinion 

 has been adopted both by ancients and moderns, and Bilious 

 fever is a term still subsisting in every body's mouth. I,[formy 

 part, cannot admit of the bile as a cause ; for it is by no means 

 adequate to the effect of producing any fevers ; not even those 

 which we call bilious fevers, and which may be properly enough 

 so named from the redundancy of bile which occurs in them. 

 Fevers are owing to something else taken from without ; and I 

 shall prove that autumnal fevers are owing to what I call marsh 

 effluvia : and I maintain, that whatever be the heat of the cli- 

 mate, and, consequently, the acrimonious state of the bile, 

 if marsh effluvia be avoided, no intermittent fever will arise. 

 The whole of Dr. Lind's ingenious work on the preservation of 

 health of Europeans in warm climates, turns upon this, that the 

 heat of the climate will not bring on fevers if the marsh effluvia 

 be avoided." 



This view of the subject does not lead us to consider the 

 state of the bile as the cause of intermittents, but merely as a 

 circumstance accidentally concurring with them, from the state 

 of the season in which they arise. What attention this requires 

 in the conduct of the disease, I shall consider hereafter. 



LII. From this view of the principal hypotheses which have 

 hitherto been maintained with respect to the proximate cause of 

 fever, it will appear, that fevers do not arise from changes in 

 the state of the fluids ; but that, on the contrary, almost the 

 whole of the phenomena of fevers lead us to believe, that they 

 chiefly depend upon changes in the state of the moving powers 

 of the animal system. Though we should not be able to ex- 

 plain all the circumstances of the disease, it is at least of some 

 advantage to be led into the proper train of investigation. I 

 have attempted to pursue it, and shall now endeavour to apply 

 the doctrine delivered towards explaining the diversity of fevers. 



CHAP. III. OF THE DIFFERENCE OF FEVERS, AND ITS CAUSES. 



" I must repeat that in the order Febres there occur the 

 three states of Debility, Spasm, and increased Reaction. These 

 I have hitherto considered as succeeding each other, but you 



