RADCLIFFE. 113 - but by his judicious method of treating the small- pox : a method, indeed, which Sydenham had in- troduced into the art of medicine about ten years before RadcHffe established himself at Oxford. It consisted in the employment of the cooling treat- ment — a practice which seems to have been partly suggested by reasoning upon the nature of the disease, and which has been amply sanctioned by experience. In his original treatise upon the small- pox, Sydenham dwells much upon the salutary in- fluence of cold, in those worst and most aggravated forms of that disease, which are sometimes brought on by the pernicious use of the heating and sti- mulating treatment then in vogue. Luckily, he observes, it occurs occasionally, that from the pre- posterous application of external heat and inward cordials, the patient becomes delirious, and in a fit of frenzy, escaping from the cruel attention of his nurse, leaps out of bed, lies exposed for many hours to the cool night air, and thus haply re- covers. In proof whereof he relates an anecdote of a person whom he knew, who in his youth had gone to Bristol, and while there was seized with the small-pox, and became delirious. His nurse having occasion to go into the town, left her pa- tient to the care of others, during her absence. Being detained somewhat longer than she ex- pected, the sick person (as it seemed to those about him) gave up the ghost. As the weather was very hot, and the body was stout and corpu- lent, in order to prevent the bad odour of the corpse, they lifted it immediately from the bed, and placed it, with the exception of its being covered by a sheet, in a state of perfect nudity I 2
