196 PRACTICE OF PHYSIC. 



and to confirm this explanation, I have remarked, that the 

 eruption happened to women not in childbed, but who had been 

 much subjected to a frequent and copious menstruation, and to 

 an almost constant fluor albus. I have also had occasion to 

 observe it happen to men in fevers, after wounds from which 

 they had suffered a great loss of blood. 



Further, that this eruption is produced by a certain state of 

 debility, will appear probable, from its often occurring in fevers 

 of the putrid kind, which are always attended with great de- 

 bility. It is true, that it also sometimes attends inflammatory 

 diseases, when it cannot be accounted for in the same manner ; 

 but I believe it will be found to attend especially those inflam- 

 matory diseases in which the sweats have been long protracted 

 or frequently repeated, and which have thereby produced a 

 debility, and perhaps a debilitating putrid diathesis. 



DCCXXVII. It appears so clearly to me that this erup- 

 tion is always a symptomatic and factitious affection, that I am 

 persuaded it may be in most cases prevented merely by avoid- 

 ing sweats. Spontaneous sweatings, in the beginning of dis- 

 eases, are very rarely critical ; all sweatings, not evidently cri- 

 tical, should be prevented ; and the promoting them, by increas- 

 ing external heat, is commonly very pernicious. Even critical 

 sweats should hardly be encouraged by such means. If, there- 

 fore, spontaneous sweats arise, they are to be checked by the 

 coolness of the chamber ; by the lightness and looseness of the 

 bedclothes ; by the persons laying out their hands and arms ; 

 and by their taking cold drink : and, by these precautions, I think 

 I have frequently prevented miliary eruptions, which were other- 

 wise likely to have appeared, particularly in lying-in women. 



DCCXXVIII. But it may happen, when these precautions 

 have been neglected, or from other circumstances, that a miliary 

 eruption does actually appear ; and the question will then be put, 

 how the case is to be treated ? It is a question of consequence, 

 because I believe that the matter here generated is often of a 

 virulent kind ; it is frequently the offspring of putrescency ; 

 and, when treated by increasing the external heat of the body, 

 it seems to acquire a virulence which produces those symptoms 

 mentioned in DCCXIX., and proves certainly fatal. 



It has been an unhappy opinion with most physicians, that 



