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Show HO .D'rrz‘r‘zratrons of opinions and practice infevcr. D" )1. Currie speaks in a tone as nearly approache ing to censure as the unaffected benevolence ot‘his nature would allow. He is not " surprized at the imperfect success of the cold allusion in the hands of Dr. Jackson," ([1. 197) uho requires a high state of excitement or of sensibility on the surface in its application.For inferiority of success, if, the fact were allowed, the far greater virulence of disease in the patients which the army physician has to treat whether at home or abroad, will I think, go no inconsiderable way towards accounting. But. Dr. Jackson (p. 130-133) makes an atv tempt, by no means unsuccessful, to shew that the mortality in his bands was actually less than of the same military hospitals under other treatment and less than in London; less even than in the workhouse at Liverpool, as reported in Dr. Currie's own first publication»- And in extensive malignant epidemics, bloodlefling under a proper application seems to have Wham ‘in .- A-- hcenjust as successful as cold affusion in the ‘A‘Tp‘m; .‘ i most tavourahle examples: a fact which shews the relative excellence of both methods. Dr. Jackson observes (l. c. 240) " that 177 The doctrine seems not only intelligible but sa- lutary. For in the varieties of common fever of this country these affections exist not unfre~ quently in a degree, and are removed by free bleeding about the head and cold applications to it.-Afterwards spring water may be more generally applied with ad vantage;--wliether by spunging, as- was much practiced a considerable time before Dr. Currie gave precision and authority to‘the method of Dr. W'right, or by allusion. Likewise when the pulses are "hard, quick, irritated, labouring to overcome a resistance; respiration hurried, breath hot; head-ache ren(ling, with great heat of the forehead," bleed- ing succeeds according to numerous and good authorities. In the one case, sensibility appears beneficially increased and in the other diminished. For it can by no means be maintained as a general proposition that loss of blood increases sensibility. One often sees indeerl-as in delicate women who sustain profuse hasmorrhage in child-bed---sucl1exalta- tion of this faculty, that scarce can the patient drop asleep without awaking flurried or with star-tings of the limbs like those excited by 4,5,, where there are marks of bloated stagnation [15' and innbility-torpor, sluggish, languid and oppressed circulation, countenance dull, diffi- culty in expanding the chest, bleeding will restore the susceptibility of impression," the doctrine electric shocks. But in a variety of inflammatory and nervous diseases, local or general bleeding reduces sensibility to its natural stan- dard, unless we are unaccountably using the same sounds in a different sense. As in in- N inflammation, |