Medical reports, on the effects of water, cold and warm, as a remedy in fever and other diseases : whether applied to the surface of the body, or used internally / by James Currie, M.D.

  • Currie, James, 1756-1805.
Date:
1808
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Medical reports, on the effects of water, cold and warm, as a remedy in fever and other diseases : whether applied to the surface of the body, or used internally / by James Currie, M.D. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    in our wishes for alleviating human misery, and mitigating the destruction of this desolating war. Your conduct even exceeded my expectation. Our correspondence on this occasion turned my views to the other means of opposing this pestilence. Ablution with cold water in fever had been so long employed at the hospital here, and in private practice, by my friends and colleagues Dr. Brandreth and Dr. Gerard, as well as myself, that it was become general in Li- verpool, and common in the county of Lancaster. So long ago as the year 1791, a general statement by Dr. Brandreth of its advan- tages had been published by Dr. Duncan, in the medical Commen- taries of that year. It had also been noticed by me in the Philo- sophical Transactions for 1792, and I had repeatedly mentioned it in private correspondence •, it had often been recommended to the surgeons of African ships in those examinations required by the legislature, and which are chiefly made by the physicians and surgeons of our hospital. On different occasions likewise I had not only explained, but exhibited the practice, to practitioners from a distance, and particularly to one or two going to the West Indies. A method of treatment so bold, and so contrary to com- mon prejudices, made however, as it appears, slow progress. The mode of operation of our remedy has been misapprehended ; the proper period for using it has not been understood; and on some occasions having been resorted to improperly, the consequences have brought it into disrepute. Reflecting on these circumstan- ces, and exposed by situation to the reiterated sounds of death from the Western world, my decision was speedily made: I re- solved no longer to delay an account of our treatment of fever, in the expectation of including it in a larger field of discussion, and of presenting it in a form more conducive to reputation ; and the fruit of this determination is the work now presented to you. In treating my subjects, perspicuity has been studied rather than ri- gorous method ; I have every where endeavoured to make my steps so plain, that they may be distinctly traced ; the most important points are impressed again and again to guard against mistake; my thermometrical observations have enabled me to give a preci- sion to the directions for the use of the affusion of cold water which otherwise they could not have had ; and, if I do not flat- ter myself, have laid a foundation for my reasonings, which spe- culations on fever have seldom possessed. I have guarded against the unnecessary use of technical as well as of general expressions. It were better perhaps that medicine, like other branches of na- tural knowledge, were brought from its hiding-place, and exhi- bited in the simplicity of science, and the nakedness of truth, li