ON PUERPERAL FEVER. 
191 
horse under ordinary circumstances, and this followed up by a 
considerable quantity of other purgative medicines, with the most 
happy results. In short, Sir, it could only be the loss of motor 
action that could have warranted Mr. Wilson’s extreme mode of 
treatment in the cases he has recorded ; and he ought to have 
reflected, that if, by any possibility, my'theory is found at last to 
be the true one, the whole weight of these opprobrious anathe- 
mas will fall on his own defenceless head. 
Mr. Wilson also seems to ground his doctrine partly on the 
supposition that he gave precisely the proper quantity of medicine, 
and abstracted the exact quantity of blood requisite in each of 
his cases, — because they all recovered. The inference here 
drawn may or may not be a correct one. There are cases, I 
believe, which, so far from owing any thing to our endeavours, 
get well in spite of us. I will not quarrel with his practice, 
however, though it is my opinion that part of it might have been 
superseded by a more advantageous one ; but as this is simply 
my opinion, I will not urge it. 
To prove that I do not mistake him here, take the inference 
he has drawn in his own words: — “The point in dispute is 
simply a rule-of-three question. If so much bleeding and medi- 
cine did great good, will not much less of both do ill ? Most 
assuredly it would.” Now, Sir, as it is possibly the last time 
that Mr. Wilson and I may meet in your pages, pray allow me 
to give him a word of advice. Never work your pathological 
questions by the rule-of-three. It is bad, very bad. Cocker 
would not recommend it. There is a better rule, a much better ; 
have patience, you will come to it by and by : — it is practice. I 
have somewhere heard of an unfortunate fellow, who, fatally 
for himself, worked his own case by the rule-of-three. It will 
serve to illustrate the folly of it. He was attended by his sur- 
geon for some illness, and he had sent him a box of pills, “two 
to be taken every night.” He followed the direction exactly the 
first night, and, finding himself much better the next morning, 
he felt highly indignant at his medical attendant. “Why (said 
he) it is quite clear to me, that he wishes to protract my recovery 
much longer than is necessary. This is simply a rule-of-three 
question. If two pills have relieved me so much in twelve hours, 
what must the whole twenty-four have done in the same time ? 
It is as plain as any proposition can be, that I must have been 
quite well by this time.” He took the remainder on the 
strength of this reasoning, and never worked another rule-of- 
three question. 
In adverting to a mistake of his (in calling the paralyzed 
state of the animal debility, &c. which he says “arose from his 
