[Page 1]

[Page 2]

[Page 3]

[Page 4]

Yours which I had the pleasure to receive last post, con¬
cerning Mr Gordon of Halleaths, calls upon me immediately to
write, not only to acknowledge this letter, but your former one,
concerning the same patient, which I received by himself, on his
return from Edinr; and which I delayed acknowledging till I
saw if any thing satisfactory could be said about him –– You
are so obliging as to make apologies for the length & minute¬
ness of your letters, but I beg you to be assured that these are
by no means necessary, for the more particular you are I
shall always be the better pleased, well knowing that large
experience alone can properly regulate, or ascertain many things
to practice; –– so far at least as they can be ascertained.

Having never writ you on the subject of Mr G. I shall shortly
submit to you what has occurred to me about him. –– The notion I have
all along formed of his present complaints, since their first appearance, which
was about March last, has been very unfavourable. He has been, for a
great part of his life, such a valetudenarean – You was consulted about
his gouty complaints twelve or fourteen years ago – Of late years I have
had him several times under my care, and, for the most part, have been
not a little perplexed with him. Two different times, when keeping his
supposed gouty habit in view; – and in the treatment of symptoms, which
seemed to be merely of a nervous kind, not attended with any appear¬
ances whatever of an inflammatory diathesis; – all my measures were
disturbed, once with the unexpected occurrence of an ophthalmia, so
acute, and of such long duration, as almost to threaten him with the
loss of an eye; – at another time, with the attack of an angina
hardly less violent. –– He has been a man of extreme liveliness, and
of much sensibility; –– and his spirits have been often much depressed
from different causes of anxiety, and agitation of mind, to which
in the course of his affairs he has, for a long time, been more or less sub¬
jected. –––– Considering all these circumstances, – when his present complaints
made their appearance, I could not help dreading that, in a constitution thus
variously debilitated, they were the beginning of a serious paralytic Disorder,

The occurrence of acute inflammatory symptoms, as mentioned above, at
a time when the general ailments were strictly and considerably nervous,
is certainly not common, at least to such a degree. –– Something of the same
kind I thought very observable in the two or three first months of the
present disease. After the paralytic symptoms had made a considerable
progress, and the use of stimulants seemed to be absolutely necessary,
I was, as in former instances, disconcerted by his being attacked with
frequent and severe febrile paroxysms; – not indeed preceeded by any
obvious cold stage, but giving an excessive degree of heat, lasting for
a great part of the night, with a very quick and full pulse; – and
terminating in profuse sweats. – These attacks however never did him
any of that service which fits of fever excited in paralytic cases have
been supposed to do.

If the above ideas of this case be reasonable, and founded on just
observation we will not wonder, I suppose if our most powerful remedies
should fail us. A few days before I received your last I saw Mr Gordon
for about an hour in my way home from a journey in Annandale;
and found him situated very much as when he left you. The electri¬
city has been used very regularly and completely, and he has been
using the Guajac. &c – He is now pretty free from any general disorder
or uneasiness except what low spirits occasion. Tho' the power of re¬
taining his urine & stools is certainly better than it once was, yet all
that can be said is that when he has warning which he commonly
has, he gets them managed. – In recovering the use of his limbs he
has made no progress whatever; – and, upon the whole, Mrs Gordon in¬
formed me that, from the first, nothing had done him any material service
I transmitted your last in course of post to Halleaths, and think it
probable that Mr Gordon may take a ride in here soon, when we will
concert matters in proceeding according to your directions with a
trial of warm bathing; – particularly in raising the heat to as great
a degree as he can bear it. –– By an account which I procured in
London from a good hand of the temperature of the Bath waters, the

I will take care to inform you when any thing
worth communicating occurs, and in the mean time
am with the sincerest regard

To
Doctor Cullen
Physician
Edinburgh