Page:A Treatise upon the Small-Pox.pdf/76

This page has been validated.
48
Of the Method of Cure.

gimen, and discharged all the Train of warm Alexipharmack Remedies, such as above enumerated, and instituted a Method of Practice Reverse to this; for he opened not only the Curtains round the Bed, but often the Windows likewise to let in fresh Air to the Room, took the sick Persons out of Bed, and plied them constantly with diluting and attempering, or with acid and cooling Remedies: In the mean Time he often thro' the several Stages of the Distemper, prescribed six Drams, or an Ounce of Syrup of white Poppies to be taken in the Evening, or at the Beginning of the Night, and to be repeated, and the Dose to be increased as great Wakefulness and Inquietude should demand; and this Method has much obtained since his Time.

To compromise the Controversy between the contending Parties, and to set the Matter in a true Light, it must be considered, as I have explained my self in the former Part of this Discourse, and that of malignant Fevers, that there is so great a Solution and Disruption of some Parts of the Blood, sometimes in a lower, sometimes in a higher Degree, as makes them incapable of being reunited and consolidated again with the sound Parts from which they are broken off; but they must be digested and expelled, or Nature must sink and fall in the Attempt; and in this Disposition of the Blood consists what we call Corruption, or Putrefaction, and which for its Conformity in all its Properties to a Gan-

green