Medical inquiries and observations / by Benjamin Rush, M.D. professor of chemistry in the University of Pennsylvania.

  • Rush, Benjamin, 1746-1813.
Date:
MDCCLXXXIX [1789]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Medical inquiries and observations / by Benjamin Rush, M.D. professor of chemistry in the University of Pennsylvania. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    of luxury, have fupplanted fevers; and the few that are left, appear fo complicated with other difeafes, that their connection can no longer be difcovered with an epidemic conftitution of the year. The pleunfy and peripneurnony, thofe inflammatory fevers of ftrong constitutions, are now loft in catarrhs, or colds; which inftead of challenging the powers of nature or art to a fair combat, infenfibly undermine the conftitution, and bring on an incurable confumption. Out of 22,434 who died between December 1769 and the fame month in 1770, 4594 perifhed with that Bntijk diforder. Our countryman, Doftor Maclurg, has ventured to foretel that the gout will be loft in a few years, in a train of hypochondriac, hyfteric and bili- ous diforders. In like manner, may we not look for a feafon when fevers, the natural difeafes of the hu- man body, will be loft in an inundation of artificial difeafes, brought on by the modifh practices of mo- dern civilization ? It may notbe improper to compare the prognosis of the Indians, in difeafes, with that of civilized na- tions, before we take a comparative view of their re- medies. Th e Indians are faid to be fuccefsful in predicting the events of difeafes. While difeafes are fimple, the marks which diftinguifh them, or characterize their feveral ftages, are generally uniform and obvious to the moft indifferent obferver. Thefe marks afford fo much certainty, that the Indians fometimes kill their phyficians for a falfe prognofis, charging the deatn of the patient to their careleffnefs, or ignorance. They eftimate the danger of their patients by their degrees of appetite; while an Indian is able to eat, he is looked upon