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Sir James McGregor, on the other hand, not only eulogizes its therapeutical
value as a purgative, hut urge its use till some soreness of the mouth was present.
He believed it caused the skin to become softer, the pulse more regular, the eye
clearer, and the tongue moist, the thirst, head symptoms, and abdominal affection
disappearing.
These authors and their contemporaries recommended saline diaphoretics and
cooling diluents in order to promote free perspiration, and suggested the liquor
ammoniæ acetatis, nitric ether, and camphor mixture, together with cold ablutions.
Aided by sudorifics, a sweating arose, which caused an immediate remission from
all symptoms.
Blood-letting was practised and condemned, and one, Dr. Whyte, states that he
used the lance freely, and in every instance death followed.
Opium, with circumspection, and wine were reputed to be beneficial.
Emetics were recommended and had their supporters on the ground that
by unloading the stomach and small intestines they carried a relaxation of the
skin and brought on a favourable perspiration.
The Maltese and Egyptian physicians were in favour of the free use of vege-
table acids and especially lemon-juice, and also in the form of baths.
Friction with warm oil was supposed to be useful, but Luigi of Pavia, who
tried it for 27 years in Smyrna, declares it to be more efficacious as a prophylatic
than as a means of cure, and the French surgeons in 1798 and 1799 discarded it as
being positively injurious in every way.
Locally.
These same men advised bread-and-water poultices to the buboes, or some
digestive or resinous applications instead. The French were in favour of actual
cautery and potassa fusa, and Bulard spoke highly of the artificial formation of
buboes by irritating the neighbouring lymphatics.
Clot Bey gave his patients emetics and diffusible stimulants in what he terms the
first stage, and bleeding and cupping in the second stage.
Our own local experience unconsciously followed some of the methods adopt-
ed in the foregoing. Mercury in the form of liq. hydrarg. perchloride was admin-
istered alone, or combined in continual large doses, but without, so far as my observa-
tions are concerned, any special benefit. One fact seemed palpable-that is, that
plague patients can tolerate an abnormal quantity of this drug without either the
production of salivation or the characteristic gum line, or other indications of mer-
curial manifestations ; neither do they exhibit any signs of iodism, under the influence
of iodide of potassium, which also failed to do any good. Locally iodine, carbolic
acid, guaiacol, alone or mixed, were disappointing when applied to the involved
gland, whether on its surface or injected within. And so also were the
various plasters of mercury, lead, and belladonna ; leeches gave some relief by
lessening tension and congestion ; and neem leaves, so strongly advocated by
natives, completely failed. Indeed, after a fair and extended trial of all these and
their local applications, I arrived at the conclusion that the chief object to be
attained was to relieve the pain and tension of the bubo and encourage early
suppuration by continuous relays of hot linseed poultices, to discard it otherwise
as the seat of danger, and regard it merely as a relic of the danger which has
originated from within its structure to attack more important functions. Of course
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