Medical reports, on the effects of water, cold and warm, as a remedy in fever, and febrile diseases; whether applied to the surface of the body, or used as a drink: with observations on the nature of fever; and on the effects of opium, alcohol, and inanition / by James Currie.

Date:
1797
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Medical reports, on the effects of water, cold and warm, as a remedy in fever, and febrile diseases; whether applied to the surface of the body, or used as a drink: with observations on the nature of fever; and on the effects of opium, alcohol, and inanition / by James Currie. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    creafed cold produced by evaporation, but alfo from the lofs of heat by the rapid changes of the furrounding me- dium, as the foregoing experiments point out. 3. Whether, in high and cold winds without rain or Inow, and where a fituation may be cholen beyond the reach of the waves, it is iafer to continue in the air, or to leek refuge in the lea, mu ft depend upon feveral circum- ftances, and cannot perhaps be certainly determined. The motives for choofing the fea will be ftronger in propor- tion as the wind is high and cold, and in proportion as the Iliorc is bold. • . ■ ■ t t» • . -• The foregoing narrative Ihowsthat men may furvive twen- ty-three hours immerfion in the lea, of the temperature of 38® or 40 0 (as great a cold as it almoft ever poflefles) with- out food or water, and almoft without hope of relief; but that any man ever lurvived an equally long expofure to the higher degrees of cold of the atmofphere, in the fame cir- cumftances, does not appear. Though in the cafe related, immerfion in water did not prevent thirft, yet there is no doubt that it alleviated it, a circumftance of high importance towards the preservation of life. Liverpool, December i5, 179T. P. S. 1 have purpofely avoided any reafoning on the caufes of the lofs of vital heat on the change of media in the experiments recited. It may be fuppofed that during immerfion, the water immediately in contact with the fkin, having become heated to a certain degree, the naked body, on riling from it into the air, was in fad expofed to a colder medium, and thus the lols of heat, in this inftance,produced. My