Note 86 — PART II. OF DISEASES. (continued 2)

In the commercium literarium for the year 1735, we have the history of an epidemical miliary fever, which raged at Strasburgh in the months of November, December, and January; from which we learn the necessity of a temperate regimen in this malady, and likewise that physicians are not always the first who discover the proper treatment of diseases. “This fever made terrible havock even among men of robust constitutions, and all medicine proved in vain. They were seized in an instant with shivering, yawning, stretching, and pains in the back, succeeded by a most intense heat; at the same time there was a great loss of strength and appetite. On the seventh or ninth day the miliary eruptions appeared, or spots like flea-bites, with great anxiety, a delirium, restlessness, and tossing in bed. Bleeding was fatal. While matters were in this unhappy situation, a midwife, of her own accord, gave to a patient, in the height of the disease, a clyster of rain-water and butter without salt, and for his ordinary drink a quart of spring water, half a pint of generous wine, the juice of a lemon, and six ounces of the whitest sugar, gently boiled till a scum arose, and this with great success; for the belly was soon loosened, the grievous symptoms vanished, and the patient was restored to his senses, and snatched from the jaws of death.” This practice was imitated by others with the like happy effects.