226 
and with the most faithful resemblance to 
the originals. 
Your’s, &e. 
Kensington, 
March 6, 1809. T. F.. Disprn. 
_P.S. [should not have troubled you with 
this explanation, but that I thought myself 
absolutely called upon so to do, from an un- 
grounded report which might otherwise oze- 
rate to my prejudice. 
== 
To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine. 
SIR, 
HE delight I have received. from 
perusing the rational Reports of 
your humane, intelligent, and courage- 
ous Correspondent, Dr. Reid (for in an 
age like this, of maiicious criticism, it 
demands the firmness of a man devoted 
to the service of his feilow-creaiures, to 
project even the shadow of a medical 
reform), [ cannot easily express; and 
this delight bas been greatly augmented 
of late, by perceiving that he is not to be 
deterred by the suggestions of false pity, 
from exposing the inefiicacy of the pre- 
vailing mode of treating the disease called 
Consumption—for, until the whole nation 
is roused to a due sense of the necessity 
of discovering some method of checking 
its originating causes, or applying other 
sorts of remedies in the cure, when the 
present so miserably fail,we have scarcely 
a right to assume the character of a re- 
fiecting or even a rational people. 
To see consumptive patients, as 1 con- 
tinually do, owing to the situation I live 
in, riding about early on raw damp morn- 
ings, after coming out of hot-curtained 
beds ; frequently lodged on the humid 
. banks of a muddy river, in houses whose 
walls, being constructed of rude masses 
of petrosilex, are always cold, and often 
damp in the spring; to see many of 
these unfortunate beings condemned to 
drink profusely of water on an empty sto- 
mach, or load their jaded digestive facul- 
ties with balsamic mixtures, or repose on 
contaminated feather-beds, probably one 
of the many original causes of this cruel 
disease to the healthy who attend them, 
and possibly the very origin of the disease 
itself; for thousands of feather-beds (that 
accursed invention of unthinking luxury,) 
in this country, have not for centuries per- 
‘formed any quarantine, while even new 
ones, as they are called wheu the ticking 
ts new, are often little else but pest-con- 
ductors, composed of materials from bro- 
kers’ shops, to whichihey are generally 
consigned by the heirs of those whg,died 
of contagious diseases.—To see these 
things and be silent in the view of such 
<4 
On the Prevention and Cure of Consumption. [Apribs, 
errors, is impossible.—-Permit me, there- 
fore, to state one or two instances of per- 
sons recovered, who were very far gone 
in this disease, by a directly opposite 
principle, and to suggest, as I hope 
many others will do by means of your li- 
beral pages, how far [ have reason to 
think, that a contrary treatment would 
be of utility, the result of sonie degree of 
ex perience among my relatives. 
Considering consumption as a lasting, 
habitual, intermittent fever, arising from — 
the effect of cold humid vapours absorbed 
by bodies relaxed and dry :—whether by 
the acridity of hereditary humours, the 
_ heat induced by intemperance, the arti+ 
ficial noxious warmth of manufactories, 
or excessive application of the mind te 
studies that irritate the nervous system, 
or athletic exercises by far too violent :-— 
whether the victim is prepared by the 
bed infected; the indulgent nurse; the 
meretricious chambermaid; or the ambi- 
tious tutor, who wants to rear a prodigy 
of infantine abilities—whatever be the 
cause, if it really be of the nature of fever, 
asa fever, I think there can be no doubt, 
it ought to be treated ; and if the system 
of cold ablution has been found favour- 
able in other fevers, I eaqnot see why it - 
should not be resorted to in the crises 
of this.—In support, therefore, of this 
doctrine, let me be allowed to advance a 
case in point, as it appears to me.—A 
young gentleman,whom I knew many years 
ago, heing given over by all the physicians 
at the Hot Wells, on expressing a cette. 
tainty that he cou!d not live out another 
week, was advised by a stranger, as that 
was his opinion, to try an experiment to 
save his life, and to go to a poor woman’s 
cottage in the neighbourhood, where 
there literally was nothing to be had but 
bread, potatves, and water. He went, 
subsisted on nothing else for the first 
week, scarcely eating any thing whatever, 
and, when I saw him, was completely 
recovered, having continued this low 
diet from choice for about a year afters 
wards. eke 
The second is more remarkable. 
A linen-draper, connected with a house 
im Bread-street, Cheapside, being con- 
sidered in a deep decline, was sent by 
his physicians to Gibraltar, where his 
distemper increased, until an order came 
to dismiss al] the English from the garri- 
son, war being declared suddenly with 
Great Britain. Embarked without delay 
inva felucca, he was scarcely out of the 
harbour when an Algerine pirate took 
them prisoners, and this gentleman was 
first 
