Thomas Beddoes to James Watt, 6 June [1794]

Dear Sir

Your two letters are just come to my hands. They suggest to my mind the idea of alleviation of symptoms, not of essential amendment. For the suffocating respiration I w^d try a plaister of emplastrum <epispasticum> vescicatorium diluted with 3-5 of common plaister so as not to produce vesication but rubefaction <of the part> – D^r Darwin’s plan sh^d certainly, I think, be practiced now you seem to have a truce with the hysterical symptoms. By essential amendment I mean an abatement of the frequency of cough, pulse and <qt^y of> expectoration.

I have acc^ts seemingly authentic of the good effects of oxygene in asthma. One of my own patients, most severely afflicted with the disease for 25 years and almost at death’s door is, I am told by the Apothecary, surprisingly recovered. I had left an apparatus with him. Surely some utility will result from all this bustle about airs & substances intended to act chemically – I am very much pleased with the hints you have scattered through your letters. I hope to turn them to account.

I have just received a copy of D^r Darwin’s Zoonomia, a work which I expect will be to medicine what the Principia of Newton were to Mechanical Philosophy.

I am Dear Sir,
your obliged

Thomas Beddoes

Friday 6^th June

Address: James Watt Esq. / Heathfield / Birmingham
Endorsement: D^r Beddoes / 6th of June
MS: LoB MS 3219/4/28/3

The full versions of these letters with textual apparatus will be published by Cambridge University Press.