Note 62 — OF THE RHEUMATISM.
Reading edition
Dr. Brocklesby, in his Observations on military Diseases, recommends the Use of large Quantities of Nitre dissolved in Water Gruel, or Sage Tea, (in the Proportion of two Drachms of the Nitre to a Quart of the Liquor) in acute Rheumatisms. He says, “I am assured from numberless Instances, that in stout young Men, by taking six hundred Grains (ten Drachms) daily, for four or five Days successively, and diluting plentifully, as before recommended, plain Nitre proves the most powerful and best Sudorific, in such Complaints, that I have ever tried; and this Quantity, and even more, may be retained in the Stomach, and pass through the Course of the Circulation, by only diluting properly with those thin attenuating Beverages as before recommended. Such Quantities, in three or four Days, seldom failed wonderfully to relieve the Patient, and very often to cure him entirely, by the most plentiful and profuse Sweats.” See from p. 116, to p. 124.
I have never hitherto given Nitre in such large Quantities as here recommended by Dr. Brocklesby.