Mrs. O---- of L---- street, in this town, aged 28, naturally of a
thin, spare habit, and her family inclinable to phthisis, sent for me
on the 11th of June, 1779, at which time she complained of great pain
in her side, a constant cough, expectorated much, which sunk in water;
had colliquative sweats and frequent purging stools; the lower
extremities and belly full of water, and from the great difficulty she
had in breathing, I concluded there was water in the chest also. The
quantity of water made at a time for three weeks before I saw her,
never amounted to more than a tea-cup full, frequently not so much.
Finding her in so alarming a situation, I gave it as my opinion she
could receive no benefit from medicine, and requested her not to take
any; but she being very desirous of my ordering her something, I
complied, and sent her a box of gum pills with squills, and a mixture
with salt of tartar: these medicines she took until the sixteenth,
without any good effects: the water in her legs now began to exsude
through the skin, and a small blister on one of her legs broke.
Believing she could not exist much longer, unless an evacuation of the
water could be procured; after fully informing her of her situation,
and the uncertainty of her surviving the use of the medicine, I
ventured to propose her taking the Digitalis, which she chearfully
agreed to. I accordingly sent her a pint mixture, made as under, of
the fresh leaves of the Digitalis. Three drams infused in one pint of
boiling water, when cold strained off, without pressing the leaves,
and two ounces of the strong juniper water added to it: of this
mixture she was ordered four table spoonfuls every third hour, till it
either made her sick, purged her, or had a sensible effect on the
kidneys. This mixture was sent on the seventeenth, and she began
taking it at noon on the eighteenth. At one o'clock the following
morning I was called up, and informed she was dying. I immediately
attended her, and was agreeably surprised to find their fright arose
from her having fainted, in consequence of the sudden loss of twelve
quarts of water she had made in about two hours. I immediately applied
a roller round her belly, and, as soon as they could be made, 2
others, which were carried from the toes quite up the thighs. The
relief afforded by these was immediate; but the medicine now began to
affect her stomach so much, that she kept nothing on it many minutes
together. I ordered her to drink freely of beef tea, which she did,
but kept it on her stomach but a very short time. A neutral draught in
a state of effervescence was taken to no good purpose: She therefore
continued the beef tea, and took no other medicine for five days,
when her sickness went off: her cough abated, but the pain in her side
still continuing, I applied a blister which had the desired effect:
her urine after the first day flowed naturally. Her cure was
compleated by the gum pills with steel and the bitter infusion. It
must be observed she never had any collection of water afterwards.
It affords me great pleasure to inform you that she is now living, and
has since had four children; all of whom, I think I may justly say,
are indebted to the Digitalis for their existence.
There appears in this case a striking proof of the utility of emetics
in some kinds of consumptions, as it appears to me the dropsy was
brought on by the cough, &c. and I believe these were cured by the
continual vomitings, occasioned by the medicine.