122 FOTHERGILL'S MEDICAL FRIENDS CHAP. 



in fluent and elegant Latin, his observations on the 

 climate and epidemic and endemic fevers of the island. 

 His friend read them with much pleasure, and sent them 

 to Cuming with a few words of appreciation. The letters 

 give a charming picture of the affectionate friendship 

 between these comrades. " Vale, mi Johannes," he 

 writes, " iterum, iterumque, vale." x 



Cleghorn left Minorca in 1749, and came in the next 

 year to London, where, at Fothergill's suggestion, and 

 with his literary assistance, he published his Observations 

 on the Epidemical Diseases in Minorca, with an account 

 of the climate and inhabitants, and of the endemic dis- 

 tempers. The work is well done ; it maintains indeed 

 the antique form, quoting Hippocrates and Celsus often 

 as well as the moderns ; yet it is based upon the facts he 

 has himself observed, the natural course of fevers, their 

 reaction to remedies, and the comparative success of 

 different forms of treatment. His model is " the incom- 

 parable Sydenham." When, however, he reasons on the 

 facts he does not escape the erroneous theories of the time. 

 The principal chapter in his work deals with tertian 

 fevers, the commonest type of what we know as malaria. 

 Experience taught him that purging and bleeding were 

 here often hurtful, and in some cases he omitted them 

 entirely. When the symptoms were moderate and the 

 strength good, " I frequently trust," he says, " the whole 

 business to nature." But the bark (cinchona), against 

 which medical prejudice was still strong, was his main 

 remedy, though he did not generally give it till the fifth 

 day, when he would prescribe 5 or 6 drachms of the 



1 " VII Kal. Quinctil. A.S. 1742." Again in 1738 he writes : " Fac ut 

 sodalibus meo nomine gratuleres, et sciant quod horum memoria usque adeo 

 meae menti inhaereat, ut nunquam nisi cum extreme spiritu demittatur." 

 The climate was no light burden. " Epistolam ... ad finem perduxi non 

 absque molestia, scias enim me earn scripsisse aestuante summopere coelo, 

 solo indusio vestitum, et sudoribus obrutum. 



O, qui me gelidis in vallibus Hasmi 



Sistat, et ingenti ramorum protegat umbra ! " 



Virgil, Georg. ii. 488. 



Cleghorn's letters to Fothergill are preserved, neatly copied out, in a MS. 

 volume in the library of the Medical Society of London. (W. c. 22.) 



