A DISSERTATION ON THE EPIDEMIC CHOLERA: 619 
with reverential feelings due to so great a character for learning 
and worth, the justly-admired Sydenham, and we shall see that, 
guided by his acute practical observation,*and that admirable 
tact which he so eminently possessed, and aided also by the 
study of the ancients, how very near he came to the true treat¬ 
ment of the disease, though his views upon it were evidently 
not distinct, but considerably clouded by the prevailing feeling 
of preceding ages, of its bilious character and a redundant bile. 
In other respects he describes the disease well, calling it cholera 
morbus, see Sect. 4, cap. 2, and says, that in his days, that is 
from the year 1669 to 1674, it made its appearance every year in 
the autumn season, on the first chills of the declining summer, 
with as much regularity “ as the coming of the cuckoo in the 
spring, or of the departure in autumn of the swallow.’’ He 
describes it with its three characters, vomiting, purging, and 
gripes, and recommends for its treatment, net exactly the warm 
water of Celsus and Hippocrates*, but something of a more 
digestible quality—plenty of warm chicken broth;” it is, in 
its effects, not very distantly allied to our hot water, which, how¬ 
ever, has the advantage, in all situations, of being more quickly 
attainable. He recommends encouraging the vomiting, and 
especially on no account to suppress it; and, aware that some 
cause of offence remained with the stomach, he recommends 
spear-mint tea also; and also laudanum in the advanced stage 
of the disease, but expressly forbids its use in the early stage, 
that it might not repress the vomiting ; no doubt finding from 
experience that it tended to arrest the stomach from performing 
any of its usual functions, such at least it is fair to conclude 
would be its effect, and with injurious consequences as to di¬ 
gestion. But towards the latter end, and when in reality the 
danger was passed, he recommends, as did the ancients, small 
portions of generous wine. Here, according to our notions, he 
was somewhat deficient, and in a very bad case would, in all pro¬ 
bability, have lost his patient for the want of these stimuli being- 
more early applied ; but washing the stomach out, instead of 
digesting its contents, may suffice sometimes in mild cases and 
in feeble attacks of the disorder, and hence the proceedi »g by 
emetic wdl often be found to have succeeded, as may be seen from 
the history of very many cases where the mustard emetics were 
employed, which were much used in England at the commence¬ 
ment of the appearance of the epidemic, but were discontinued 
afterwards, from finding, perhaps, that they had often failed. 
* Who appears to have taken it from Erasistratns, Lib. 2, as quoted by 
Coelius AurelianuSy p. 262—“Saliitariiim utatur tepido potu voniitum pro- 
vocans vcl acrimoiiiam temperuns fellis.’’ .. - 
