hectic paroxysms, and that day he missed it altogether. This
circumstance led him to ride out daily in a carriage at the time the
febrile accession might be expected, and sometimes by this means it was
prevented, sometimes deferred, and almost always mitigated.

This experience determined him to undertake a journey of some length,
and Bristol being, as is usual in such cases, recommended, he set out
on the 19th of April, and arrived there on the 2d of May. During the
greater part of this journey (of 175 miles) his cough was severe, and
being obliged to be bled three different times on the road, he was no
longer able to sit upright, but at very short intervals, and was
obliged to lie at length in the diagonal of a coach. The hectic
paroxysms were not interrupted during the journey, but they were
irregular and indistinct, and the salutary effects of exercise, or
rather of gestation, were impressed on the patient's mind.

At Bristol he stayed a month, but reaped no benefit. The weather was
dry and the roads dusty; the water insipid and inert. He attempted to
ride on horseback on the downs, but was not able to bear the fatigue
for a distance of more than a hundred yards. The necessity of frequent
bleedings kept down his strength, and his hectic paroxysms continued,
though less severe. At this time, suspecting that his cough was
irritated by the west-winds bearing the vapour from the sea, he
resolved to try the effects of an inland situation, and set off for
Matlock in Derbyshire.

During the journey he did not find the improvement he expected, but the
nightly perspirations began to diminish; and the extraordinary fatigue
he experienced proceeded evidently from his travelling in a
post-chaise, where he could not indulge in a recumbent position. The
weather at Bristol had been hot, and the earth arid and dusty. At
Matlock, during the month of June 1784, there was almost a perpetual
drizzle, the soil was wet, and the air moist and cold. Here, however,
the patient's cough began to abate, and at intervals he found an
opportunity of riding more or less on horseback. From two or three
hundred yards at a time, he got to ride a mile without stopping; and at
length he was able to sit on horseback during a ride from Mason's Bath
to the village of Matlock along the Derwent, and round on the opposite