Air applied by way of Clyster._

Leeds, Feb. 15th, 1772.

Reverend Sir,

Having lately experienced the good effects of fixed air in a putrid
fever, applied in a manner, I believe not heretofore made use of, I
thought it proper to inform you of the agreeable event, as the method of
applying this powerful corrector of putrefaction took its rise
principally from your observations and experiments on factitious air;
and now, at your request, I send the particulars of the case I mentioned
to you, as far as concerns the administration of this remedy.

January 8, 1772, Mr. Lightbowne, a young gentleman who lives with me,
was seized with a fever, which, after continuing about ten days, began
to be attended with those symptoms that indicate a putrescent state of
the fluids.

18th, His tongue was black in the morning when I first visited him, but
the blackness went off in the day-time upon drinking: He had begun to
doze much the preceding day, and now he took little notice of those that
were about him: His belly was loose, and had been so for some days: his
pulse beat 110 strokes in a minute, and was rather low: he was ordered
to take twenty-five grains of Peruvian bark with five of tormentil-root
in powder every four hours, and to use red wine and water cold as his
common drink.

19th, I was called to visit him early in the morning, on account of a
bleeding at the nose which had come on: he lost about eight ounces of
blood, which was of a loose texture: the haemorrhage was suppressed,
though not without some difficulty, by means of tents made of soft lint,
dipped in cold water strongly impregnated with tincture of iron, which
were introduced within the nostrils quite through to their posterior
apertures; a method which has never yet failed me in like cases. His
tongue was now covered with a thick black pellicle, which was not
diminished by drinking: his teeth were furred with the same kind of
sordid matter, and even the roof of his mouth and sauces were not free
from it: his looseness and stupor continued, and he was almost
incessantly muttering to himself: he took this day a scruple of the
Peruvian bark with ten grains of tormentil every two or three hours: a
starch clyster, containing a drachm of the compound powder of bole,
without opium, was given morning and evening: a window was set open in
his room, though it was a severe frost, and the floor was frequently
sprinkled with v