16S

SMALL-POX.

previously unaffected by it, on changing their place of residencefrom a level to a hilly country. While on the contrary the inhab-itants of extensive districts in Lincolnshire and in Essex enjoy acomplete immunity from this disease. In Holland, pulmonaryconsumption is a disease of comparatively rare occurrence. Thesame situations that predispose to ague are unfavourable to theattack of phthisis, as if these two states of the constitution wereincompatible with each other. The physicians of ancient Romewere accustomed to send their consumptive patients to the low andmarshy land of Egypt. Cicero, the celebrated orator, who, in hisyouth, was threatened with consumption, as the hollow templesand sharp features of his remaining busts abundantly testify, trav-elled into Egypt for the recovery of his health. In this countrythe choice of situation is not sufficiently attended to ; althoughevery practitioner of medicine must have remarked that even thesoft breezes of Brompton and Chelsea have benefited invalids whowere injured by the keener air of Highgate and Hampstead.*

In the incipient stages of phthisis pulmonalis the dry vomittaken in a morning, fasting, I have known occasionally to be ofuse. Keeping up a copious discharge from the surface of the chestby the savin ointment subsequent to the application of a blistering-plaster, sometimes appears to arrest the progress of the disease.

When symptoms of incipient phthisis have been accompaniedby tumours commencing at the clavicle and extending upwardstowards the ear, I have seen much benefit from the administrationof calomel combined with steel.

When recovery is despaired of, a diet consisting of buttermilkand the lighter farinácea, prolongs existence, and mitigates thedistress of the cough more effectually than the use of opium.From a medicine, which of late years has been much extolled, asdiminishing the frequency of the pulse, (digitalis) I am sorry tosay, I have seen no permanent benefit produced in thts disease :and notwithstanding the boast of empiricism, a remedy that willheal ulceration or resolve tubercles, I believe yet remains to bediscovered.

CHAP. XIV.

SMALL POX, (Variola.)

This disease, which originally came from Arabia, is, since thediscovery of vaccination, not so general as heretofore ; nor doesit appear to be of so malignant a type. It is, nevertheless, a mostcontagious malady; and for many years proved the scourge of civ-ilized as well as uncivilized nations. It generally makes its ap-

• In the islands of Guernsey and Jersey, where the climate is so loaded with moistare, that common salt deliquesces if exposed to the air, I am informed that coughs arevery rare, and pulmonary consumptions almost unknown. Of course these islandsmust be an excellent situation for persons of a phthisical temperament.

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