Critical Days, and regulated their Practice according to the Expectation they had from them; This Part of Physick is grown now into disuse, quite slighted, and even ridiculed; and that I suppose chiefly for these two reasons. In the first place, because the earliest Observations of this kind, which were drawn into Rules being made in Eastern Countries, when these came to be applied to the Distempers of Northern Regions, without allowance given for the difference of the Climate, they were oftentimes found not to answer. And secondly, Fevers of old were treated with few or no Medicines, the Motions of Nature were carefully watched, and no Violence offer'd to interrupt her Work. The Histories therefore of Crises, tho' of great Use, and certainty under such Management as this, were at length unavoidably set aside and lost; when Acute Cases came to be Cured, according to this or that Hypothesis, not only by Evacuations, but hot or cold Alteratives too; there being no longer any room for those Laws of Practice which supposed a regular and uniform Progress of the Distemper.
Wherefore, in order to understand a little both what might Induce the first Masters of our Profession to so nice and strict an Observance in this point; and what grounds there may be now, for a more due regard to their Precepts, even upon the score of the Lunar Attraction only, I propose the following Remarks.
- All Epidemic Diseases do in their regular course require a stated time, in which they come to their height, decline, and leave the Body free.
This is so constant and certain, that when a Fever of any Constitution which is continual in one Subject, happens from some other cause, in another to be intermitting, the Paroxysms do always return so often as all together to make up just as many days of Illness as he suffers, whose Distemper goes on from beginning to end, without any abatement.