148
NERVOUS FEVER.
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above, or other drinks of a warm and cordial nature. He is nothowever to be over-heated either with liquor or clothes ; andhis food ought to be light, and given in small quantities.
Medicine.— Where a nausea, load, and sickness at stomachprevail at the beginning of the fever, it will be necessary togive the patient a gentle vomit. Fifteen or twenty grains ofipecacuanha in fine powder will generally answer this pur-pose very well. This may be repeated any time before thethird or fourth day, if the above symptoms continue. Vomitsnot only clean the stomach, but, by the general shock whichthey give, promote the perspiration, and have many other ex-cellent effects in slow fevers, where there are no signs of in-flammation, and nature wants rousing.
Such as dare not venture upon a vomit may clean the bow-els by a small dose of Turkey rhubarb, or an infusion of sennaand manna.
In all fevers, the great point is to regulate the symptoms, soas to prevent them from going to either extreme. Thus, infevers of the inflammatory kind, where the force of the cir-culation is too great, or the blood dense, and the fibres toorigid, bleeding and other evacuations are necessary. Butwhere nature flags, where the blood is vapid and poor, andthe solids relaxed, there the lancet is to be avoided. Hencebleeding is never to be permitted in nervous fevers unlessthere be evident signs of inflammation, which is very seldomthe case.
It is the more necessary to caution people against bleedingin this disease, as there is generally at the beginning a uni-versal stricture upon the vessels, which even to the patienthimself often gives the idea of a plethora, or too great a quantityof blood. I have known even some of the profession deceivedby their own feelings in this respect so far as" to insist upon be-ing bled, when it was evident the operation was improper.
Though bleeding be improper in this disease, yet blisteringis highly necessary. Blistering plasters may be applied at alltimes of the fever with great advantage ; we would howeveradvise people not to make too free with them at the begin-ning, lest there should be more occasion for them afterwards.If the patient be delirious, he ought to be blistered on the neck,and it will be the safest course, while the fever continues, assoon as the discharge occasioned by one blistering plasterabates, to apply another somewhere else, and by that meanskeep up a continual succession of them till the patient be outof danger.