part, we should go but a
little way towards removing the inflammatory disease, which
universally pervades the system.

The mode to be pursued therefore is, to take a quantity of blood from
the body, by opening a vein; to keep the body cool, by remaining in a
room where the temperature is at temperate, or a little below; by
abstaining from animal food, and from spirituous or fermented
liquors; and by the exhibition of purgatives, or at least of
laxatives. Then leeches or blisters applied to the part affected will
produce a good effect; and even stimulant applications to the
inflamed part may be advantageous; for a topical inflammation, as we
shall afterwards have occasion to see, depends on a debilitated state
of the minute vessels of the part, while at the same time the action
of the whole system is increased.

Besides the energy of the exciting hurtful powers, which I have
mentioned, there is in the parts which undergo the inflammation, a
greater sensibility, or an accumulated excitability; by which it
happens that some are more affected than the rest. To this we may
add, that whatsoever part may have been injured by inflammation, that
part in every future sthenic attack is in more danger of being
inflamed than the rest. Hence inflammatory sore throat, rheumatism,
and some other complaints of the kind, when once they have
supervened, are very apt to recur.

Among the sthenic or inflammatory diseases may be enumerated
rheumatism, catarrh, cynanche, or sore throat, scarlet fever,
inflammations of the brain, stomach, lungs, &c. &c.

Many of the contagious diseases, particularly small pox and measles,
produce a sthenic state, and are to be cured, or their action
moderated, by the debilitating plan which has been pointed out; and
particularly by a moderate, constant, and equable diminution of
temperature. Hence the violence of these diseases is greater when
they attack a person already predisposed to sthenic diathesis, but
much more mild when the excitement is rather under par.

LECTURE XII.
ON INFLAMMATION AND ASTHENIC DISEASES.

The last lecture was taken up chiefly with an account of sthenic
diseases, or those depending on too great a degree of excitement, and
which have been generally, but improperly, called inflammatory or
phlogistic. In that lecture I attempted to show, that when the
natural exciting powers, which support life, act with too much power,
or particularly if we employ any stimulants not natural t