Sir Hans began by observing, that the age of the Bishop might throw a doubt over the propriety of more bleeding, but he had so often seen the advantage of repeated venesection, that he had the greatest faith in that mode of treatment. “In one case particularly which I saw abroad”--but here let me interrupt the Baronet for a moment, to make an observation, which in the many consultations at which I have been present, has more than once occurred to me. These deliberations are generally proposed either because the attending physician is at a loss what further to suggest, or that he wishes naturally enough to divide the responsibility of the management of a dangerous disease. They are held for the most part upon ailments of a _chronic_ nature, that is upon such disorders as afford time and opportunity to form the judgment, and decide upon a method of practice; for it is lucky that in urgent diseases, or those which are called _acute_, the remedies are simple, and that where delay would be dangerous, the means of relief are obvious. In consultations, there is of course much scope for diversity of opinion, but in the whole range of the plausible reasoning which the conjectural science of medicine admits of, there is nothing so imposing as a _case_; it bears down all before it. One of the consulting Doctors, after hearing the history of the previous treatment, advances that he has seen a case similar to the one, now under consideration, in which he did so and so with manifest advantage; the argument is irresistible----
But this by way of parenthesis. “In one case particularly (said Sir Hans Sloane) which I saw abroad, I saved a man’s life, who complained extremely of a great pain in his shoulder, or rather inside of his pleura answering to that part, which increased on breathing high, sighing or coughing, for the patient was troubled with a short cough. The man was on board a ship bound for England, and it was taken by all for sea sickness, but I told them, they were all deceived, and forthwith ordered him to be bled in the arm to about ten ounces, and gave him an emulsion, and a pectoral decoction of barley, liquorish and raisins. I immediately found him much better, and ordered him to continue this, and to take of crab’s eyes and sal prunellæ, of each half a drachm, and to swallow morning and evening the half on’t, drinking afterwards a pectoral draught, and in case of relapse I ordered him to be bled again; which was necessary to be done, for the ship chirurgeon, contrary to my desire, gave him a vomit: the patient, poor fellow! knowing nothing of it, till it was down. His pains thus returned, and I bled him twice on two several days, and with an emulsion he was cured. I have found also (added Sir Hans), in similar cases great advantage in applying a hot bag of parched salt to the side; but bleeding is the main remedy. I have bled a patient five times in her foot and arm in twelve hours.” Whilst the baronet was speaking, the countenance of Dr. Cheyne underwent various changes, and when mention was made of the emulsion, which if I am not mistaken, was a compound of linseed oil, sugar-candy, and decoction of barley, it assumed a very decided expression of disgust, for he was a bon vivant of the first order. To the further employment of venesection, he was rather averse, and insisted much upon the advanced age of the Bishop. “An old man’s body (observed Dr. Cheyne), is like a plant dried by the sun, its fibres are stiff, and juices decayed, and not as in youth able to prepare new nutriment, to repair the loss of solids and fluids. For this decay of the humours, the cure of the _cacochymia_ is necessary; and to renovate the solids, we find no help like warm bathing and unctions, and you yourself (said he archly to Sir Hans) must have remarked, in your own native country, that the Irish live long, who anoint themselves with salt butter.” What the remedies were which were ultimately ordered for the aged Prelate, I do not now recollect, but his own prediction was soon after fulfilled, and he died on the 17th of March 1715.