A new inquiry into the causes, symptoms, and cure, of putrid and inflammatory fevers : with an appendix on the hectic fever, and on the ulcerated and malignant sore throat. ... / By William Fordyce.

William Fordyce

Date:: 1777

Credit: A new inquiry into the causes, symptoms, and cure, of putrid and inflammatory fevers : with an appendix on the hectic fever, and on the ulcerated and malignant sore throat. ... / By William Fordyce. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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$( Sea. 4.] BY PURGI N G. iof whole effefl of a purge to be altering the nature, by leffening the quantity of the blood, and who renounced the notion of fpecific purges; alledging, that gentler means than thofe made ufe of by Hip¬ pocrates to purge phlegm or water, bile or black bile, would anfwer all the ends propofed. Their notions on this fubjefl gave Galen great offence, as they interfered with his favourite plan, and pro¬ voked him to appeal to common experience, as well as to his known practice at Rome, (if Hippo¬ crates had no weight with them) and to challenge them to cure a jaundice by an indifcriminatepurge, with the fame fuccefs that he could by a fpecific one; or to cure a dropfy by bleeding, which dirni- nifhed the quantity of the blood, inffead of .curing by a hydragogue. This diverfity of opinions among the old phyficians has occafioned muck difpute among the modern : the anatomifts Mal¬ pighi, De Graaf, Pechlin, Borelli, Willis, and likewife the phyfiologifts, have taken different fides, as their theories or cbfervations led them.— •See Martin's Effays. If the effects of medicines were confined to the ftomach or bowels, much might be faid for the fupport of both opinions; but there are fo many proofs of their entering the mafs of blood, no lefs than all the vifeera, that it were unreafonable to confine ourfelves to any particular fyffem on this fubjeCt, efpecially when we fee the effects of rhu¬ barb on the colour and fmell of the urine in a few \ H 3 minutes$