FEVERS. 645 



markable. Sir John Pringle relates the case of a gentleman in 

 the smallpox, who drank above four bottles of wine in the day 

 to obviate a delirium which recurred when the effects of the 

 wine seemed to cease, and was again removed by returning to 

 that remedy. Sir John Pringle observes, that in the low state 

 of fevers, nothing is comparable to wine ; and, in the last ac- 

 count of his jail fever, so great were its virtues, says he, that he 

 has known many recover from tjie lowest condition by nothing 

 but a little panada and wine, and the volatile mixture, by turns. 



" Where the symptoms are evident, we may presume upon 

 the virtues of wine, and the state of the body that admits of it ; 

 but there is certainly another case, as Sir John Pringle ob- 

 serves, when the delirium is found to increase upon the use of 

 wine, when the eyes look wild, the pulse quickens, and there is 

 the presumption of a true phrenitis, then wine and all stimu- 

 lant medicines aggravate all the symptoms. This is a theory, 

 as I call it, with respect to the use and application of wine, 

 which shews that we are mentioning it here in its proper place; 

 and that it acts especially as a stimulant. Let me add a few 

 practical directions with regard to it. 



" I would give this general rule : When fevers manifestly 

 arise from contagions, when they are known to be of the con- 

 tagious kind, and so depend upon a sedative power prevailing in 

 the system, when, at the same time, they have few or no inflam- 

 matory symptoms, we may, very early in the course of the dis- 

 ease, have recourse to the most safe of all our stimulants, wine. 



" But there are many cases in which the circumstances are 

 not sufficiently decisive, that is, where we are not secure of the 

 absence of inflammatory diathesis ; and in such cases it is pro- 

 per to abstain from wine entirely till the symptoms of debility 

 appear more evident ; and they commonly appear even in the 

 second, but more certainly in the third week of our continued 

 fevers. But even when this period is arrived, and when debility 

 very certainly prevails, whilst we cannot be secure against the 

 presence of some topical determination, some inflammatory af- 

 fection, we may, in this uncertainty, be determined by the fol- 

 lowing circumstances: First, By the former habit of the pa- 

 tient : if he has used every day a quantity of wine, as a part of 

 his ordinary diet, and especially in larger doses, perhaps to the 



