Indian Science and Technology in the Eighteenth Century: Some Contemporary European Accounts c16.29

c16.29

If the known effects of cold bathing are attended to, and its sovereign virtues duly considered, in the very different circumstances of palsies, rheumatism, general relaxation of the solids, and particular relaxation of the stomach and intestines, we shall not be long at a loss to account for this part of the Eastern practice in the course of inoculation: They allege in defence of it, that by the sudden shock of the cold water, and consequent increased motion of the blood, all offensive principles are forcibly driven from the heart, brain, and other interior parts of the body, towards the extremities and surface, and at the same time the intended fermentation is thereby more speedily and certainly promoted; (hence it probably is, that the fever generally commences so early as about the close of the sixth day). When the fever appears, they desist from the use of the cold water, because when the fermentation is once begun, the blood should not, they say, receive any additional commotion until the eruption appears, when they again resume the cold water, and continue it to the end of the disease; asserting, that the use of it alone, by the daily fresh *impetus* it gives to the blood, enables it utterly to expel and drive out the remainder of the *immediate* cause of the disease into the pustules. I have been myself an eyewitness to many instances of its marvelous effect, where the pustules have sunk, and the patient appeared in imminent danger, but almost instantly restored by the application of three or four collans of cold water, which never fails of filling the pock, as it were by enchantment; and so great is the stress laid by the Eastern practitioners on this preparative (for as the three interdicted articles in food is preparative to the inoculation, so this may be deemed preparative to the eruption) that when they are called in, and find, upon enquiry, that circumstance (and opening the pustules) has not been attended to, they refuse any further attendance.