8629. TYPHUS FEVER, Treatment of.—
While I was in Paris, both my daughters
were taken with what we formerly called a
nervous fever, now a typhus. * * * Dr.
Gem, * * * never gave them a single dose
of physic. He told me it was a disease which
tended with certainty to wear itself off, but
so slowly that the strength of the patient
might first fail if not kept up; that this alone
was the object to be attended to by nourishment
and stimulus. He forced them to eat a cup of
rice, or panada, or gruel, or of some of the
farinaceous substances of easy digestion every
two hours, and to drink a glass of Madeira.
The youngest took a pint of Madeira a day
without feeling it, and that for many weeks.
For costiveness, injections were used; and he
observed that a single dose of medicine taken
into the stomach and consuming any of the
strength of the patient was often fatal. * * *
I have had this fever in my family three or
four times since, * * * and have carried
between twenty and thirty patients through
without losing a single one, by a rigorous observance
of Dr. Gem's plan and principle. Instead
of Madeira I have used toddy or French
brandy.—
To James Madison.
Ford ed., x, 181.
(M.
1821)
