ERUPTIVE FEVERS. 199 



" I may here observe, that we have in this country a disease 

 frequent among the common people, under the name of Blibes, 

 which produces pretty large blisters. They are from the begin- 

 ning from the size of a pea to that of a hazle nut, and some 

 larger ; they appear after a very slight fever. They are full of a 

 clear watery liquor, not changeable into pus ; these break in a 

 day or two, and the cuticle falls off in scales. It has also oc- 

 curred to Sauvages ; but so far as I have seen it, it is a slight 

 affection, and requires no particular remedy." 



DCCXXXIIL The Aphtha, or Thrush, is a disease 

 better known ; and, as it commonly appears in infants, it is 

 so well understood as not to need our treating of it here. As 

 an idiopathic disease, affecting adults, I have not seen it in this 

 country : but it seems to be more frequent in Holland ; and 

 therefore, for the study of it, I refer to Dr. Boerhaave, and his 

 commentator Van Swieten, whose works are in every body's 

 hands. 



" The Aphthae may be considered as exudations from inflam- 

 mations; but they have connexion with the mucous excretories, 

 by this singular circumstance, that they appear on the pudenda 

 as well as in the mouth. 



" With a view to practice, the question is, if they are idio- 

 pathic or symptomatic. 



" In adults, I have said, I have never seen the disease idiopa- 

 thic; and in infants I cannot consider it as febrile, and depend- 

 ing on a matter in the mass of the blood ; but as a topical af- 

 fection, from the first impression of the air on the mucous ex- 

 cretories, always within the first months. 



u With respect to adults, it may be in Holland an idiopathic 

 disease, but for that we have but one author, Ketelaer, and 

 those who have copied from him. Van Swieten has this singular 

 fact, that the disease does not occur in southern climates ; but 

 that must be as an idiopathic, for the authors of Italy, France, 

 and Spain, mention the symptomatic aphtha. 



"For the treatment of the idiopathic, I must refer to Van Swie- 

 ten. My observations, as to the symptomatic, are, that I have 

 known it in three cases : first, as attending hectics ; secondly, 

 as affecting old and fatal dysenteries ; and, thirdly, as appear. 



