- cines both acid and austere, or such as are spirituous and well
fermented, but applied with great caution and gentleness. 5. By any means that will remove and remedy the too great pulling of them.
[That Boerhaave belonged to the iatrophysical or iatromechanical
school appears very clearly throughout these
quotations.]
DISTEMPERS OF THE STIFF AND ELASTIC FIBRE
(35) [In distempers of this group] the cure is effected, 1. By such meat and drink as is thin and watery, without any roughness, chiefly by the continued use of milk-whey, of the softest herbs and salads, barley-water, thin gruel, and unfermented liquors. 2. By avoiding of exercise, and dwelling in a moist, coolish air, and taking long sleeps. 3. By the taking or outwardly applying watery, lukewarm, tasteless medicines, and such as contain the lightest and softest oils.
In the second half of the volume I find abundant evidence
of Boerhaave's ability to treat efficiently some of the acute
and chronic maladies; and, after a perusal of the text
which deals with these affections, I have no difficulty in
understanding how he came to be looked upon as one of
the leading medical practitioners of the period during which
he lived. I should be glad to reproduce here such portions
of the aphorisms as would corroborate the statement that
I have just made, but unfortunately the small amount of
space that I can command does not permit me to do this.
At every step, as I advance, I am warned against the danger
of exceeding the limits permitted, and I shall, therefore,
in the present instance, have to rest satisfied with quoting
the larger part of a single paragraph in which is given an
account of the treatment employed in a case of acute
pleurisy.
(890) . . . If the same pleurisy be recent before the end of
the third day, yet violent from the many and strong symptoms,
and dry, in a strong, exercised, dry body, without the hopes of the
presence of (887 and 888) [a resolution or a concoction and excretion
of the cause], then let the patient immediately be blooded
