A German, called Christian Pineroot, who was employed in one of the sugar-houses, was brought
sick of the fever, but not very bad; I administered electricity freely, and the assistant means;
he was restored immediately; the third day, early in the morning, he absconded the hospital,
without any discharge; I returned his name to Dr. Bailey, who had not seen him. I used the
shock on one more, a young man just arrived from London; he was brought to the hospital extremely bad,
exercised with excruciating pain in his head, &c. With the electric shock I gave him immediate relief
from pain; but as I directly left the hospital, without pursuing it till I had sufficiently taken off
the tension, and induced perspiration, I know not how it terminated with him. I have taken the
liberty to make those few brief statements of facts, that the citizens may, if they please,
inform themselves of the truth of them, in some instances, at least. I shall now close this paragraph,
by observing that the most strict attention must be paid to the patient's temperature of air, or rather
an exclusion from air, from every the least degree of coolness for a number of days after the
operations of electricity are desisted. After a sufficient evacuation has been made by sweating,
the degree of heat must be moderately abated, but not to admit of the least coolness; for this purpose
a very careful nurse must attend the patient in sleeping, lest by accident the covering be thrown
off, and the patient take cold, which would at least be hurtful, if not endanger life itself. There is
no possible case in which it is so difficult to guard against checking the perspiration,
or taking cold, as in that of electrifying till perspiration is induced; and, indeed, without
even making that perceptible, there is need of particular caution. Being thoroughly convinced that
the success of the operation depended very much on the faithful attention of the nurse, and the
difficulty of persuading them of this truth, I have ever made it my care to observe their conduct in
this particular; or when I could not trust to them, and had leisure myself, or when the repute of
medical electricity was suspended on the case, as in that of Mrs. Bower, I have taken the whole business
on myself, and have generally had the best success when I have so done. The physician will now
understand that electrifying in a propper manner performs nearly every part of the cure, excepting
what is performed by emetics, cathartics and tonics. Electricity ought to be used in the
first stages of a fever; the patient is better able to bear the operation: if it is neglected in
dangerous fevers, some part essential to life may be so impaired or wounded as never to recover by any means.
It should be used early in the yellow fever, such as hath prevailed of late at New-York, Philadelphia, and
some other places, to reduce the action of the heart and arteries, before their enginery,
by pressing too
Continue backward Continue forward