lled. For it is evidently an
inflammatory fever, and can be speedily cured by the debilitating
plan, and particularly by keeping in a moderately cool place, where
the temperature is equable, and not subject to alternations of heat
and cold.

But how easily might this complaint have been avoided, were the
person subject to it acquainted with its real nature, and the manner
in which it is brought on. When we come out of a very cold
atmosphere, we should not at first go into a room that has a fire in
it; or, if this cannot be well avoided, we should keep for a
considerable time at as great a distance from the fire as possible,
that the accumulated excitability may be gradually exhausted by the
moderate and gentle action of heat; and then we may bear the heat of
the fire without any danger; but above all, we should refrain from
taking warm or strong liquors while we are hot. In confirmation of
this opinion, numerous instances might be brought, where catarrh was
cured merely by exposure to cold.

When a part of the body only has been exposed to the action of cold,
and the rest kept heated; if, for instance, a person in a warm room
has been sitting so that a current of air, coming through a broken
window, has fallen upon any part of the body, that part will soon be
affected with an inflammation, or what is called a rheumatic
affection. In this case, the excitability of the part exposed to the
action of the cold, becomes accumulated, and the warm blood, rushing
through it, from every other part of the body, excites an
inflammation.

Thus catarrh and rheumatism are inflammatory complaints, or depend on
too great a degree of excitement, and are to be cured by lowering the
excitement, or diminishing the action of the exciting powers; by
bleeding, purging, low diet, and particularly keeping in a moderately
cool place; and these complaints will be as speedily and certainly
cured by these methods, properly and judiciously persevered in, as a
slight cut or wound will be healed by what surgeons call the first
intention.

There are complaints which resemble these, but whose nature, however,
is very different, and which require a very different mode of
treatment. After a part has been long affected with rheumatic
inflammation the excitability of the muscular fibres becomes so far
exhausted, that a state of indirect debility takes place, and an
inflammation, accompanied with pain and redness, which is very
different from that I fo