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INTERMITTENT FEVERS, &c.

As autumnal and winter agues generally prove much more obstinate than those which attack the patient in spring or summer, itwill be necessary to continue the use of medicines longer in theformer than in the latter. A person who is seized with an inter-mitting fever in the beginning of winter, ought frequently, if theseason prove rainy, to take a little medicine, although the diseasemay seem to be cured, to prevent a relapse, till the return of thewarm season. He ought likewise to take care not to be muchabroad in wet weather, especially in cold easterly winds.

When agues are not properly cured, they often degenerate intoobstinate chronical diseases, as the dropsy, jaundice, &c. Forthis reason all possible care should be taken to have them radical-ly cured, before the constitution has been too much weakened.

Though nothing is more rational than the method of treatingintermitting fevers, yet, by some strange infatuation, more charmsand whimsical remedies are daily used for removing this than anyother disease. There is hardly an old woman who is not in pos-session of a nostrum for stopping an ague ; and it is amazing withwhat readiness their pretensions are believed. Those in distresseagerly grasp at any thing that promises sudden relief; but theshortest way is not always the best in the treatment of diseases.The only method to obtain a safe and lasting cure, is gradually toassist Nature in removing the cause of their disorder.

Some, indeed, try bold, or rather fool-hardy experiments, tjcure agues, as drinking great quantities of strong liquors, jumpinginto a river, taking arsenic,* &c. These may sometimes have thedesired effect, but must always be attended with danger.t Whenthere is any degree of inflammation, or the least tendency to it,such experiments may prove fatal. The only patient whom I re-member to have lost in an intermitting fever, evidently killed him-self by drinking strong liquor, which some person had persuadedhim would prove an infallible remedy.

Many dirty things are extolled for the cure of intermitting fe-vers, as spiders, cobwebs,! snuffings of candles, &c. Though

* Take Liquor of Arsenic (Fowler's solu- Tincture of Cardamoms.

tion,) 6 mins. or dps. Syrup of Ginger, of each, 1 drm.

Cinnamon Water, 1£ oz. Make a draught, to be taken every hour.

t Vomitings, gripl.igs, and swellings, and the loathing of food, are the troublesomesymptoms now and then produced by an improper use of the arsenical solution. Theygenerally, however, disappear on discontinuing the drops, or only require the exhi-bition of gentle opiates, some warm cathartic, or the tincture of rhubarb. It is said tocure intermittents in eight days. In Lincolnshire, which is a fenny country, whereagues are very prevalent, it is universally used, and with most uniform success, andhas been successfully administered by quacks under the appellation of the ague-drop.

i It is a very old popular belief that the spider's web cures agues, but among medi-cal men, till within the last twenty years, little credit was given to this supposed pop-alar superstition. In Dr. Robert Jackson's late visit to Philadelphia, he mentionedthe efficacy of this remedy as indisputably ascertained, and averred (what he after-wards published) that as an anodyne to allay pain or calm irritation, it proved vastlysuperior even to opiates. It has for some time past been pretty liberally prescribedby Drs. Physick, Chapman, and Dewers, in Philadelphia ; and though they attach differ-ent degrees of value to the article, " they are all satisfied that the representation of itsvirtue is very little, if at all exaggerated. In doses of five grains, repeated every fourthor fifth hour, Dr. Chapman has cured some obstinate intermittents, suspended the par-oxysms of hectic, overcome morbid vigilance from excessive nervous mobility, andquieted irritation of the system from various causes. That used by Dr. Chapman wascollected in cellars, and were probably the product of the common black spider.He has also satisfied himself that the web found in light exposed situations, the product