VOL. LIV.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 85 



almost ceased for the rest of the day. 3d, Every thing much the same, but the 

 attacks were lighter. 4th, Very little difference; only now and then he was 

 troubled with a glowing painful sensation immediately under the skin, sometimes 

 in one part of the body, sometimes in another, a spot about the size of a crown 

 piece. 5th, Things much the same. 6th, The attacks slighter, with the same 

 feelings. 7th, Very little change, but rather better. 



Hitherto I was mostly an observator; and, not being forced by an absolute 

 necessity, I did not chuse to load him at an uncertainty with many drugs. I had 

 given him little more than absorbent nitrous powders; but now, as he had no 

 fever, but was rather lax and weak, and his nervous system affected, I thought 

 I might begin to give him things more powerful, and therefore ordered some pills 

 composed of extr. cort. Per. myrrh, g. ammon. and sal. martis. 



Here, in prescribing, I had attention to the antipathy nature had shown to 

 iron, therefore took care the quantity in each dose should be very small, the sal 

 martis scarcely making '2 gr. The 8th, he took a dose this night, was very rest- 

 less, and greatly affected with all the former symptoms. Qth, He said he felt 

 this medicine struggling with the distemper within him; so he swallowed, though 

 with great reluctance, another dose early in the morning. In less than 3 hours 

 he was again taken very ill, with anxiety, a sense of trembling over the whole 

 body, and as if prickling sparks were flying out every where. He begged me to 

 change this medicine, and said it was like to have killed him. Having heard all 

 his complaints, I made the pills be put away, and promised he should have no 

 more of them : but his fear and aversion were so great, that the moment I was 

 gone he ordered the box to be taken out of the house and thrown quite away. 

 10th, He passed this night tolerably, and found liimself much better in the 

 morning: but the complaints came by turns as before. 



From this till the '20th, I gave him sundry medicines, but with little more 

 effect than to ease him now and then ; for the complaints always returned again 

 indifferent manners and at uncertain times: but nothing extraordinary happened. 

 On the 20th, Igave him a dose of Epsom salt, which he had been used to take: 

 it purged very well; but immediately on its leaving off to work, his body struck 

 out with great numbers of small red spots, without other inconvenience than a 

 little extraordinary heat in the skin. 21st, The spots were almost gone, and, he 

 found himself more cool and easy than before. 22d, He took another dose, and 

 the spots returned in the same way more than the first day ; he found also the 

 same relief. After this he took more doses of the same salt, always intermitting 

 a day or two. The spots returned, but every time fewer appeared ; and at last 

 none appeared on taking these salts. This sal cathartic, amar. came from Eng- 

 land, and whether some vitriolic acid had been used in making it, I do not know ; 

 but it is likely there had. 



