An answer to Mr. Kirkland's Essay, towards an improvement in the cure of those diseases which are the cause of fevers. Wherein is shewn, the error of his arguments for the use of cold water in extinguishing fevers / [Archibald Maxwell].
- Maxwell, Archibald, -1769
- Date:
- 1768
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: An answer to Mr. Kirkland's Essay, towards an improvement in the cure of those diseases which are the cause of fevers. Wherein is shewn, the error of his arguments for the use of cold water in extinguishing fevers / [Archibald Maxwell]. Source: Wellcome Collection.
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![f 3* ] Serioufly this is a remarkable petitio prin- cipii. Shall we fuppofe nature fo improvi¬ dent, that one of her precedes would inevi¬ tably bring deftrudtion, and this too, when her defign is the confervation of the frame ? It is impoffible for us to believe fuch the true idea of concodhon ! This is the fubftance of the argument againft the doctrine, and this fedtion is wound up with the following queftion. ‘ Has not a c certain fever-powder worked itfelf into cre- € dit only by removing the firff caufe of thofe 1 fevers, which arife from ohftrudtion, and c thereby preventing the havock that other- « wile would have been made ?’ From what is certainly known of the com ftituent parts of the powder alluded to, it is moft evidently a deobftruent; and in fevers arifing from obftrudtion, it's efficacy may be feen as it were mechanically : but in thofe fevers, where the blood is manifeflly in a dif- folved ftate, what expectation can we have from its ufe ? -— If then in different flates of the blood the powder maybe injurious, may not cold water alfo, by a fimilar argument, be of prejudice ? When](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b30545547_0030.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
