The following Cafe, amongst a Variety of others, which have fallen under the immediate Inspection of Mr. Harmant, a celebrated Phyfician at Nancy, furnishes us with a ftrong Proof of the Neceffity of the Caution recommended above, with fo much Humanity and Judgment, by Mr. Hawes. DEC ECEMBER 23, 1764, I was fent for by M. de Potier, Knight of the royal and military order of St. Lewis, &c. at Nancy, to haften with the utmoft expedition to his manfion, to attend his cook, who was dangerously ill. It was about eight o'clock in the morning when the meflenger came to my houfe; but as I was not at home, they had recourfe to another phyfician. This gentleman judging, from the appearance of the patient, that it was an apoplectic fit, he ordered the remedies ufual in fuch cafes, but without any effect. Clyfters of tobacco, with coloquintida, made not the leaft impreffion. They concluded that the patient was abfolutely dead, and from that moment every remedy was difcontinued. It was not before two o'clock in the afternoon that I was informed either of the invitation in the morning, or of the ftate of the patient. I ran to his affiftance. As I was entering the doors, the other phyfician happened to meet me, told me the cook was dead, and that every kind of aid had been administered in vain. This account did not abate my defires to fuccour the unfortunate object. I went into the room where the fuppofed corpfe, yet in bed, was expofed to the fight of a multitude of fpectators, all of whom feemed affected with the event. They were already preparing for his funeral. I immediately examined his body with the ftrictett attention; I found his face livid, and a little swollen; the eyes half open, bright, prominent; the mouth closed, teeth fixed, the neck enlarged, the belly very much fwoln: there was neither pulfe nor refpiration. By thefe different fymptoms I concluded immediately that they were the effect of the vapour of lighted charcoal. I made enquiry upon this fubject of all the domeftics. The kitchen girl informed me, that he had retired to his chamber about eleven o'clock the preceding evening, in good health; that he had carried up, by his order, a brafier, with charcoal; that finding he did not make his appearance in the kitchen at the ufual hour, fhe concluded that he was ftill asleep; but perceiving that it grew late, fhe went into the room in order to awaken him, and then the found him in the fituation in which I had feen him. This account confirming my conjectures, I prepared to adminifter afliftance. I ordered him to be immediately taken out of the bed and out of the chamber, and had him placed naked upon a feat in a court by the fide of a fountain. After he was properly fixed, I began with throwing cold water in his face by glafsfuls. I defired feveral of the affiftants to follow my example, but they complied with reluctance, being prepoffeffed that the man was dead, and that my at tempts were fruitless. More than an hour elapfed before the patient had difcovered any figns of fenfibility. The attendants began to despair, and to animate their courage, I affured them that in a fhort time they would perceive their error. This affurance, joined to my entreaties, made them renew the application of the water; they threw it with greater force, and more frequently than before, which foon produced a flight hiccough. This firft fymptom having ftruck them like a refurrection, the noise thereof was foon fpread throughout the manfion, and feveral perfons of diftinction ran to the place; I ordered the adminiftration of cold water to be continued in their prefence, frequently, and by glafsfuls. The hiccoughs became ftronger and more frequent, and I perceived that the teeth began to relax. I had ordered cylinders of liquorice root to be prepared. I introduced fome with the utmost difficulty between the teeth, to hinder them from fixing again; and we foon perceived the efforts of the air attempting to enter the cheft, and of the cheft endeavouring to diftend and contract itfelf. I ordered Spanish fnuff alfo to be blown into the noftrils with a view to excite fneezings, tho' without this effect; but the attendants perceived him to move his head, and give manifeft figns of fenfation; he moved also his right hand and fingers, as if he wished to raise them to his nofe. This new indication of his Refurrection gave the highest fatisfaction to the company. The projection of water was continued with vigour, and the frequency of the hiccoughs iucreaf ed proportionably. This remedy excited a flight vomiting of naufeous matter. I had already spent three compleat hours in attempting the recovery, and had advanced no further than to the symptoms mentioned above; but they portended a perfect cure. This I intimated to the attendants, and perfevered in the application of the cold wa ter. The continuance of this fimple remedy at length procured a vomiting of frothy matter, refembling foap fuds, to which fucceeded the most violent efforts of the cheft to relieve itself. The body of the patient began to be greatly agitated, and to raise itself. All the members, and particularly the fingers and toes, became violently contracted. In a word, he uttered a cry which I had prefaged to be the moft certain fign of returning life. I redoubled at the fame time the projection of the water, and this renewal produced a fresh difcharge of faponaceous matter, with new attempts to refpire. The movements of the body redoubled with fuch agitation, that they feemed to indicate the pain which the patient fuffered from fo long a continuance of our method of treatment. I was perfuaded, by the moft urgent entreaties, to convey the patient from the open court, where we all experienced the fevereft cold, into a warmer place. At first I oppofed their entreaties, but was at length obliged to yield to the requests of his relations. He was conveyed into the kitchen; but what I had feared and predicted, came to pass. The patient was no fooner conveyed thither, than be he relapfed into his former ftate of infenfibility. We were obliged to open the windows and doors immediately, in order to obtain the greatest degree of cold poffible, and renew the projection of water, which we fortunately found at hand. Three hours more were employed in this exercife; and between eight and nine o'clock in the evening the fubject began to cry out with violence, and was feized with a univerfal trembling. I now conducted myself as in the former cafes, and ordered him to be put to bed. I visited him about half paft ten o'clock in the evening, I found him perfectly fenfible, but his belly was diftended, and his body was feized with fhiverings at intervals. I ordered a glyker to be applied, and a ptifan of chicken broth with nitre, to be given him, and also the vulnerary mixture, with the liquor mineralis Hoffmanni. These medicines having appeafed the latter fymptoms, I learned the next morning that he had paffed a good night. The pulfe was become more regular, and the pain in the head lefs, as alfo the fhiverings, and there only remained a fenfation of fatigue, and a small diftention of the abdomen, occafioned by the wind. The fourth day our patient find. ing himself radically cured by the continuance of proper remedies, determined to go to the foot of the altar, and return thanks to God for preferving him from being interred alive; a miferable event, which would indubitably have taken place, had it not been for the application of this efficacious remedy! The following Cafe, tranflated from the French, and inferted in the Reports of the Humane Society, cannot be too extenfively published, as it proves the great Danger, and even Inhumanity, of immediately abandoning new-born Infants when apparently dead, inftead of affiduously perfevering in the Trial of every Method that may restore them to Life. A PUPIL in Midwifry in Manheim, being fent for to Lampertheim on Good Friday laft, to a woman in labour, found her in a very weak state in confequence of an hæmorrhage of 15 days continuance. He delivered her of a boy perfectly formed, but who, though all the means usual in fuch cafes were tried, gave no figns of life. Fortunately the practitioner recollected, that when he had feparated the funis umbilicalis, its artery was filled with blood, from which he concluded, that the death of the child was not occafioned by the mother's hæmorrhage; for when that is the case, the umbilical artery is generally empty and flaccid. This confideration encouraged him to try the following experiment. Having placed the child in a bath of warm wine, he applied his mouth to that of the patient, and blew into it, closing the noftrils with the right hand, that the breath might be impelled into the trachea, while, with his left hand, he rubbed the abdomen; by these means producing a kind of artificial refpiration. He continued this operation during the space of half an hour, without perceiving any effect, except that the colour of the the body became more animated. This flight profpect of success made him perfift in his endeavours. After ten minutes the infant fuddenly breathed in a convulfive manner, and uttered a plaintive cry, but without repeating thefe fymptoms. He now observed a flight pulfation in the funis umbilicalis, but without any perceptible motion of the thorax. Encouraged by these favourable appearances, he continued to blow into the mouth of the child, who foon gave repeated fighs, and in a little time the patient's compleat recovery was the reward of these affiduous attempts, in which the gentleman had perfevered during three quarters of an hour. * is impelled up the chimney by the preffure of the air entering at the fire-place, and rifing upwards after being rarified by the heat of the fire; but if fresh air is not admitted into the apartments in fufficient quantities, to fupply the confumption by the fire, the room will be quickly exhausted, and the air in it become as light as the external air at the top of the chimney, fo that the fmoke will as readily be difperfed into the chamber as through the chimney. In this case, if any door or window is opened, fo as to admit plenty of free air, the fmoke will be quickly difpelled, and the proper circulation eftablished. The fame effect will be produced, by making a fmall hole in fome of the fides of the room but unless this be done with fome judgment, it may frequently add to the disease, as it may concur with fome of the other causes of fmoky houses, to be afterwards mentioned. A better method of remedying this evil would be, to have a small hole made in the wall at the back We have inferted in the Reports of the year 1774, page 70, two cafes of a similar nature, merely as inftances of the fuccefs which will fometimes attend our affiduous ufe of fuitable methods in the cafe of ftill-born children. For the fame ends we will also fubjoin the following cafe communicated to us by Dr. Houlfton : A friend of mine, Mr. Wright Gleave, furgeon, in Liverpool, delivered the wife of Mr. Thomas Clarke, falt-boiler there, of a fon, August 21, 1776. This woman had a deformed pelvis, and had not been delivered of her other children (except one at feven months) without the help of inftruments. She now had a laborious lingering time; but at the end of two days, was delivered naturally. The child's head was much elongated. It had neither refpiration, pulfation, nor motion; and was judged by all the by-standers to be dead. It remained thus ten minutes at least, though Mr. Gleave had very judiciously employed immediately frictions on the cheft, temples, foles of the feet, &c. change of poiture, and inflation of the lungs. After thefe had been perfevered in near a quarter of an hour, fome pulfation of the heart was perceived; foon after, fome motion, and then a general convulfion came on, which lafted near ten minutes; after which the child cried, and recovered perfectly. of a of the chimney, and immediately underneath it: or a fmall perforation made in the wall in any other convenient manner; the one end of which should communicate with the external air, and the other communicate with the chamber in any place near the grate, and as low down as poffible, through which a conftant fupply of air would be administered to the fire, without the fmalleft inconvenience or trouble. If this were practifed, doors and windows might with fafety be made much closer than ufual, and our apartments rendered equally warm and comfortable, with much fmaller quantity of fuel than we ufe at prefent. For as the fire, in the ordinary mode of conftructing chambers, is kept alive by a conftant fucceffion of cold air from the doors, windows, and other crannies of the room, rushing towards the chimney in all directions, the air of the room, which, if not cooled by this means, would be quickly heated to a great degree, is conftantly kept cold, in fpite of the strong heat of a blazing fire; which, at the fame time that it fcorches the parts of our body that are most expofed to it, does not warm the parts that are turned from it; and we experience at the fame time a burning heat and piercing cold, which is often productive of the most difagreeable effects. But if the fire were fupplied with air in the manner abovementioned, there would be lefs air drawn in through the crannies of the room, fo that what was within would be foon wärmed, and continue long fo, even with a fmall degree of heat, However improper this might be for people in perfect health, it might furely be of great ufe for VOL. XX. thofe who are in a weakly habit of body; efpecially if care were taken to carry off the foul air, by having a fmall tube leading from the upper part of the room to the top of the house, through which the air that had been rendered noxious by the fmoke of candles, or perspiration, would be conveyed away, and a fucceffion of fresh air admitted from the tube near the fire-place to fupply that want. If any one fhould think of adopting this fpecies of refinement, it is proper he should be warned of the inconveniencies that may attend it, as well from the benefits that may refult from it. I fhall therefore be excufed for pointing thefe out on this occafion with fome degree of precifion. Perhaps nothing contributes fo much towards preferving the health of fedentary and reclufe perfons, as the fires that are afually burat in our apartments; as they perform the part of a perpetual ventilator, which helps to carry off the foul air, that is continually generating by the breath of the company, and burning of the candles; which would foon be accumulated in fuch quantities as to become extremely noxious, were it not for the aid that this affords us in cold climates, -On this account open fires, which are much more chearful, are also more conducive to health, than concealed itoves, which are employed in fome cold countries. We ought therefore to adhere to our own old fashion, and not be in too much hate to imitate our frugal neighbours in this particu◄ lar. For the fame reason I would by no means advise, that the method above defcribed of feeding the firs with fresh air, fhould be adopted |