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
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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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    [ S6 ] this from the very name in the original lan¬ guage. Now * fire from the beft theory, is but an effedt of motion $ and yet we never fay motion is deftroying the blazing houfe. The fever may then be truly an effedt of irritation from morbific matter, but the alarm is not till difeafe is beginning, and till the effedt is perceivable, we do not think of the caufe. Hippocrates fays, o rt y«g tonm tov uvfyumv tovto xa?.isTM vovcros. (a) 7hat which affiidis a man is called a difeafe. Now it is the fever that afHidts the patient, and that we may deem the difeafe — mor¬ bific matter may be within the frame, and running * Though the learned Boerhaave, &c. thought fire to be elementary, yet the Newtonian expreftion of its be¬ ing mechanically produced by fri&ion, may be juft ; and perhaps when ele&ricity ftiall be thoroughly underftood, fome part of the Hutchinsonian philofophy may prove true. We fay fome part, being by no means converted to the ge¬ neral dodlrine ; for we cannot fubfcribe to the reveries. But we Ihould receive inftru&ion from whatever quarter com¬ ing, confidering that the human mind is too prone to pofitlve approbation, or abfolute dijlike; while the truth is, few are totally wrong. Hill fewer perfectly right. (a) Hippocrates de Flat. Ed. Foes. p. 296,
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