linen. She for three days bled also at the toes, at the bend of her arms, at the joints of her fingers of each hand, and at the fingers ends; and in fuch measure, that in one quarter of an hour, the mother hath catched from the droppings of the fingers, almost so much as the hollow of her hand would hold. All the time of this bleeding, the child never cried vehemently, but only groaned; though about three weeks before, it had such a violent fit of crying, as the mother faid, she never heard. After the child was dead, there appeared in those places where the blood came, little holes like the prickings of a needle.

"The mother faid, "that the blood was not thin, like water, but of that thickness as blood ufually is; and that fhe and others believed there was little or no blood left in the body of the child."

[Lowthorp's Abridgement, vol. 3. page 247.]

IN the fame place we have an account of the periodical evacuation of blood, at the end of the fore finger in an innkeeper, which continued twelve years, he feldom having a refpite of two months, and the fits never returning oftener than in three weeks. He rarely bled less than a pottle (half a gallon) at a time; any attempt to ftaunch the blood, raised most exquifite tortures in the arm. No remedies proved effectual. It generally continued for twenty-four hours, till he fainted away, when it stopped of itself, and his pains left him. Towards his latter end, he bled but little, and that too but like diluted water. It carried him off. [Ibid. Related by Mr. Afb.]

Another cafe by Dr. Clopt. Havers, is given, of a woman who had an eruption of blood out of the glandula lachrymalis of one eye, without any external injury. She bled three pounds within the space of thirty hours. About a week after, the fame fluice was opened again, and the bled till fhe died. Ibid. VOL. I. PP

An Account of the fuccefsful Treatment of an obftinate and dangerous Cafe of Menorrhagia and Fluor albus.

DEAR SIR,

Bent-Creek, Virginia, December 10, 1804.

PERMIT me to relate a cafe of menorrhagy, and fluor al

bus, fuccessfully treated by bleeding, mercury, and fugar of lead; and to request your opinion of the propriety of the

treatment.

On April 27, 1804, I was called to vifit a lady, aged twentyfour, in the hemorrhagic, (or menorrhagic) state of fever. She had been married about five years, and had not enjoyed an exemption from periodical attacks of the menorrhagy, and an uninterrupted discharge of the whites, for more than four years. The precurfors were pain in the head and back, fwelling of the external organs of generation, and an itching and foreness in the vagina. The hemorrhagy was fo copious, that it threatened extinction of life. Her husband informed me, that she had taken the cold-bath, bark, elixir of vitriol, columbo, and all the tonics of the materia medica, agreeably to Dr. Cullen, without producing any fenfible relief. To me it appeared, that a preternatural or morbid excitement in the blood-veffels of the uterus, constituted the proximate cause of this disease; and that this was a cafe of hemorrhagy of strong morbid action.---I commenced the cure by bleeding twice a week, for four weeks, and then excited a gentle falivation, and continued it for two weeks. For the fwelling of the organs of generation, and itching and foreness in the vagina, I directed a weak folution of fugar of lead to be injected five times a day. By bleeding, I wifhed to fubdue a part of the inflammatory diathesis, before I gave the mercury; and by the falivation, I wished to transfer the morbid action, from the uterus to the falivary glands. I

was led to this treatment, from obferving the good effects of blood-letting and mercury, in the dyfentery and diarrhoea.---My patient enjoys good health. Her husband informed me, a few weeks past, that she looked better than he ever faw her, and that she had grown qualmish of late, which he believed to be the effect of a thriving fituation. I directed him to have her bled once or twice a month. I was led to prescribe bleeding, from neglecting it in a lady, aged forty-feven, on whom I had ftopped the uterine hemorrhagy for four months. She died of the apoplectic state of fever.

I am, dear Sir,
Yours,

DR. BENJAMIN RUSH.

ROBERT BURTON. ·

Account of the Efficacy of the Juice of the Poke-berry in the External Hemorrhoids.

A

DEAR SIR,

Havre-de-Grace, December 24, 1804.

N old gentleman of this neighbourhood, fome time ago, informed me of a very speedy cure he had made on himfelf, of the external hemorrhoidal fwellings, by the juice of the common poke-berries; he faid he had been induced to try it, from the great fuccefs with which he had seen it applied to cancerous warts and ulcers. In his own cafe, he procured the berries when perfectly ripe, and exposed the expreffed juice to the fun, until it had acquired the confiftence of jelly; this he applied to the parts affected, which caufed him fuch fevere pain, that he almost determined to abandon the experiment;

but as this fmarting and heat foon fubfided, and left him freer. than ufual from pain, he perfevered in the ufe of it twice a day; each fucceeding application creating lefs and lefs uneafinefs, until at the end of three or four days, the difeafe was entirely removed. I have fince had an opportunity of recommending it in three inftances, with the fame good effects: in one cafe the sphincter ani was fo much relaxed, that the rectum protruded two inches, and the whole perinæum and furrounding parts, were ulcerated. As I am perfuaded this plant has never before been employed in this way, and as fome of our most valuable remedies have been difcovered by chance, I have taken the liberty of troubling you with this communication, which you will be pleafed to ufe as you think proper.

I am, dear Sir, very respectfully,
Your obedient fervant.

DR. JOHN REDMAN COXE.

T. WATKINS.

Account of two Cafes of Rheumatism, cured, one by Fear, the other by Lofs of Blood; &c. &c. extracted from a letter of DR. MAXWELL SHARP, of Logan County, Kentucky, to DR. BENJAMIN RUSH; dated March 25, 1803.

I

AM prompted to relate two cafes of rheumatifm which were cured by mere accident, one by fear, and the other by the lofs of blood; and perhaps Dr. Rufh, who is fo well acquainted with the animal economy, may be able to draw fomething useful to fociety from them.

"The first was a girl of about twelve or thirteen years of age, who had not walked for two years or more. Her father moved to the Red-banks, on the Ohio; and took lodgings in

a room belonging to a man of the name of Summers, up one pair of stairs; while Mr. Summers's family occupied that immediately below. One evening a cow came up to the door a lowing. Summers, after curfing her a while, to quit; at length, in a paffion, catched down his rifle and fhot the cow; then loading as quick as poffible, discharged it up through the loft; at the fame time raising the war-hoop in imitation of the favages. It being dangerous times, and on a frontier, it very much. alarmed the family up-ftairs, fo that they all fled down. The difeafed girl fearing to be left alone, in her fright rose up, and. followed the rest of the family; and has continued free from pain ever since.

"The fecond was a man in Virginia, aged between forty and fifty: he had been troubled fome years with rheumatic pains, fo as to render him infirm. Being one day at work with an adze, he cut himself so as to occafion a violent hemorrhage, which could not be stopped until his blood would fcarce stain a cloth. He lay speechlefs four days; his bleeding stopped, and he recovered to perfect health, and free from every complaint--and, to ufe his own phrafe, was fifteen years younger. This information I had from his fon, a man of undoubted veracity.

"I shall submit thefe to your confideration---If they are of any service, I shall be amply paid for penning them.

"We have, for four or five years paft, been troubled with a fever, resembling the yellow fever in every particular; and I am induced to believe it is a species of the fame, from the concomitant fymptoms, but of a lighter grade. I have attended patients in it, who were as yellow as they could poffibly be made by bile; at the fame time with every other symptom recorded of the yellow fever: the fame treatment has the desired effect, to wit, plentiful bleeding and purging; and where this is timely premifed, it always prevents the yellow colour. It generally came on in the latter part of fummer, and ceafed at the commencement of cold weather; but this last winter its intermiffion was but fhort: it commenced early in January, attended by peripneumony and pleurify; and was more obftinate and difficult to remove, than in the preceding fummer.