Essay on the Remittent and Intermittent Diseases. 341 



The author has shown in his essay on Malaria, where the cause re- 

 sides, and the manner in which it may generally be avoided. In the 

 present work he has elucidated as far as the present state of knowl- 

 edge permits, the operation of this cause, in producing the fundament- 

 al disease — then the anomalous symptoms which arise under it — and 

 then the accessory causes which may reproduce it in endless varieties 

 and relapses — showing that all supervening disorders, modifications 

 and changes take the character of the general disease, and require 

 the same system of treatment. He dwells importunately upon the 

 melancholy delusion occasioned by mistaking such for independent 

 or original forms of disease, (thus leading in medical practice to most 

 melancholy and often fatal results. Under these delusive forms, 

 which are chronic varieties of the fever or the sequel of severe fevers, 

 are dyspepsia, rheumatism, head-ach, tooth-ach, visceral affections, 

 and a long catalogue of other complaints ; requiring the most acute 

 discrimination to detect the remote influence which controls " the 

 effect of remedies, whether for good or evil." For instance^ the 

 treatment in simple intermittent, if injurious, is injurious in all, wheth- 

 er the " simulation" appears as pleurisy, cholera, palsy, or whatever 

 else ; and remedies successfully employed in cases of ordinary in- 

 flammation, are pernicious, and often ruinous in the peculiar inflam- 

 mation originating in this specific cause. 



Of all remedies, he deems the one pre-eminently injurious in these 

 cases, to be blood-letting. Second to this, cupping, leeches, calo- 

 mel, blisters, &;c. &z;c. The effects are to reduce and prostrate the 

 patient already laboring under a debility inherent in the complaint, 

 thus increasing the morbid action — inducing a tendency to relapses 

 and rendering disorders chronic and inveterate, even where intervals 

 of relief yield the flattering hope diat they are cured. This wrong 

 mode of treatment, if persisted in, often results in fixed diseases of 

 the brain, afflicting nervous symptoms, paralytic affections, fatuity, 

 mania, and death. 



A distinguishing mark of this genus, through all its varieties, is the 

 effect produced upon the mind. The mental condition is always af- 

 fected, and in ordinary cases of fever, the hot stage is often accom- 

 panied with anxiety and horror. The sufferer next falls into a state 

 of morbid excitability, " exaggerated views of evil," impatience, ca- 

 price, and restless sensations without end. If the disease becomes 

 chronic and of long continuance, especially if the patient is reduced 

 by medicine and bleeding, the intellectual faculties become injured ov 



