26*0 PRACTICE OF PHYSIC. 



little with any precision or certainty ; and, 1 believe, in our pre- 

 sent views, we must allow them to be the work of nature, and 

 we can only avoid their further irritations, by preventing as much 

 as possible the determination to the lungs." 



DCCCCVI. When, in a person born of phthisical parents, 

 of a phthisical habit, at the phthisical period of life, the symp- 

 toms (DCCCLXXXIX.) in the spring, or beginning of sum- 

 mer, shall appear in the slightest degree, we may presume that 

 a tubercle, or tubercles, either have been formed or are forming 

 in the lungs ; and, therefore, that every means we can devise for 

 preventing their formation, or for procuring their resolution, 

 should be employed immediately, even although the patient 

 himself should overlook or neglect the symptoms, as imputing 

 them to accidental cold. 



" I know that a person under these circumstances is running 

 into a phthisis, as well as if I looked into his lungs : and if I 

 knew any certain or plausible remedy, I would, in a manner, 

 force it on the patient, though neither he nor his friends were 

 apprehensive of danger. I have seen, that when I had pre- 

 scribed a low diet, it has been said, that a debility had been 

 induced by it, which was never afterwards recovered, but which 

 in fact was owing to the disease itself." 



DCCCCVII. This is certainly the general indication ; but 

 how it may be executed, I cannot readily say. I do not know 

 that, at any time, physicians have proposed any remedy capable 

 of preventing the formation of tubercles, or of resolving them 

 when formed. The analogy of scrofula gives no assistance in 

 this matter. In the scrofula the remedies that are seemingly of 

 most power, are, sea-water, or certain mineral waters ; but these 

 have generally proved hurtful in the case of tubercles of the lungs. 

 I have known several instances of mercury very fully employed 

 for certain diseases in persons who were supposed, at the same 

 time, to have tubercles formed, or forming, in their lungs ; but 

 though the mercury proved a cure for those ether diseases, it 

 was of no service in preventing phthisis, and in some cases seem- 

 ed to hurry it on. 



DCCCCVIII. Such appears to me to be the present state of 

 our art, with respect to the cure of tubercles ; but I do not de- 

 spair of a remedy for the purpose being found hereafter. In the 



