1050 VIEWS OF CULLEN. 



But it was contended by Cullen, that " the 

 causes of the protraction of paroxysms, and 

 therefore of the continued form of fevers, are, 

 that the remote causes operate by occasioning 

 either a phlogistic diathesis, or a weaker reaction"' 

 (Practice of Physic, sect. Ixv.) And he tells us, 

 that " the phlogistic diathesis consists in an in- 

 creased tone of the whole arterial system." From 

 which it would follow, according to this theory, 

 that the continued form of fever depends either 

 on increased action, or diminished reaction. Be- 

 sides, if the phlogistic diathesis mean any thing, 

 it is merely a feverish disposition, and is the very 

 thing which required explanation. In opposition 



and abscesses ; or to render it harmless by a species of assimi- 

 lation, termed by him concoction. And as the paroxysms of 

 intermittent fever return at stated intervals, he supposed that a 

 certain definite period is required to bring about what he called 

 the crisis, whether favourable or not. But there is reason to 

 believe, from his own statements, that it is only the milder forms 

 of the disease in which the tendency of nature to observe stated 

 periods can be distinctly traced ; and that even in these, they 

 are often interrupted by mal-treatment, or by the operation of 

 some violent exciting cause. For example, it was observed by 

 that great man, that in 163 cases of fever, 107 terminated on one 

 or other of the following days, the third, fifth, seventh, ninth, 

 eleventh, fourteenth, seventeenth, and twentieth, that none 

 occurred on the second nor thirteenth, and by far the greatest 

 number on the seventh, fourteenth, and twentieth, that of the 

 favourable terminations, less than a tenth happened on non 

 critical days, whereas above a third of those which were fatal 

 occurred on the non critical days, showing even in continued 

 fevers, a tendency to periodicity, which, however, seems to be 

 interrupted in cases of extreme malignity. 



