496 THEORY OF FEVER. Su*. I. 15. 2. 



are also inflamed, the febris sensitiva irritata, or inflammatory 

 fever, exists. 



In all these fevers the part inflamed is called a phlegmon, and 

 by its violent actions excites so much pain, that is, so much of 

 the sensorial power of sensation, as to produce more violent ac- 

 tions, and inflammation, throughout the whole system. Whence 

 great heat from the excited capillaries of the skin, large and 

 quick pulsations of the heart, full and hard arteries, with great 

 universal secretions and absorptions. These perpetually conti- 

 nue, though with exacerbations and remissions; which seem to 

 be governed by solar or lunar influence. 



2. In this situation there generally, I suppose, exists an in- 

 creased activity of the secerning vessels of the brain, and conse- 

 quently an increased production of sensorial power; in less vio- 

 lent quantity of this disease, however, the increase of the action 

 of the heart and arteries may be owing simply to the accumula- 

 tion of sensorial power of association in the stomach, when that 

 organ is affected by sympathy with some inflamed part. In the 

 same manner as the capillaries are violently and permanently ac- 

 tuated by the accumulation of the sensorial power of association 

 in the heart and arteries, when the stomach is affected primarily 

 by contagious matter, and the heart and arteries secondarily. 

 Thus I suspect, that in the distinct small-pox the stomach is af- 

 fected secondarily by sympathy with the infected tonsils or ino- 

 culated arm; but that in the confluent small-pox the stomach is 

 affected primarily, as well as the tonsils, by contagious matter 

 mixed with the saliva, and swallowed. 



3. In inflammatory fevers with great arterial action, as the 

 stomach is not always affected with torpor, and as there is a di- 

 rect sympathy between the stomach and heart, some people have 

 believed, that nauseating doses of some emetic drug, as of anti- 

 lYiomimi tartarizatum, have been administered with advantage, 

 abating by direct sympathy the actions of the heart. This theory 

 is not ill-founded, and the use of digitalis, given in small doses, 

 as from half a dram to a dram of the saturated tincture, two or 

 three times a day, as well as other less violent emetic drugs, 

 would be worth the attention of hospital physicians. 



In three cases of what I believed to be inflammatory rheu- 

 matism, two of them attended with pain of the side, and difficult 

 respiration, and the other with swelled joints, after repeated ve- 

 nesections and moderate cathartics, and mild doses of an-timonials, 

 without success, the tincture of digitalis given in the small dose 

 of ten drops every six hours, appeared to abate the quickness 

 and hardness of the pulse in two or three or four days, without 

 inducing any degree of sickness. 



