190 
ON PUERPERAL FEVER. 
that such results, on the contrary, must unavoidably follow dis- 
ease of the organic motor nerves, I must leave it to your readers 
to determine from their own researches the correctness or incor- 
rectness of the argument. 
But, Sir, this is too good an opportunity to glance at the con- 
sistency of Mr. Wilson’s doctrine of fevers, for me to allow it to 
escape. He calls upon us to acknowledge, that he has with 
“ sufficient clearness ” proved “ that fever is a cause and not a con- 
sequence in this disease and yet, in the very teeth of this, he 
has just been strenuously endeavouring to shew us, that “ fever is 
produced by one of these causes ,” which he states. Which part 
of his string of arguments can he wish us to believe ? We can- 
not possibly admit both; for if one part is not as flat a contra- 
diction to the other part as I ever saw in my life, I must have 
lost all correct notions of the relative meaning of cause and 
effect. 
Again ; in another place he asks “ whether any of the symp- 
toms which accompany puerperal fever were ever found to exist 
without a considerable degree of fever, after the first bad symp- 
tom had been recognized .” After this ! “ Ay, there’s the rub !” 
as Shakespeare and St. John Long would say. After this ! 
What ! a primary cause to follow after the effect ? Why, it 
would scarcely require a disciple of Locke or Malbranche to 
prove, that this also involves a complete contradiction. 
He winds up this most lucid list of arguments with a most alarm- 
ing climax, referring us to my doctrine, and his own practice, in 
the three cases beforementioned. He says, “ if any one will say it 
would be good practice, I would only reply, that there never was 
a delusion so gross, a hypothesis so ill-supported ; never was 
practice so atrocious, and at variance with common sense. In 
a word, it would be a most impudent insult to the commonest 
understanding.” 
And yet. Sir, in defiance of this ban, I beg leave to say, that 
in “ disease of the nervous substance ” accompanied (as is the case 
in puerperal fever) with such excessive constipation, &c., I 
would perpetrate this “ atrocious practice” of bleeding extremely, 
and employing strong purgatives, &c. And I will instance a dis- 
ease that comes the nearest to it of any that I know for affecting 
the brain and nervous system to a certain extent, and the diges- 
tive organs also, where I have succeeded in many cases by this 
very “ atrocious practice I mean staggers in the horse. 1 have 
seen my father, too, in this case, cord the horse, open both jugu- 
lars at once, when it was impossible to catch the blood, and 
when the only limit to the quantity was what the animal could 
bear, and give twice or thrice as much aloes as would purge a 
