This section is from the book "Shampooing Or Benefits Resulting From The Use Of The Indian Medicated Vapour Bath", by Sake Dene Mahomed. Also available from Amazon: Shampooing: Or Benefits Resulting From The Use Of The Indian Medicated Vapor Bath.
My success in the treatment of this disease gives me confidence to assert, my pretensions to a knowledge of it theoretically, are not without a just foundation. In this instance, as in every other, I appeal to the testimony of the cures I have performed, - to the acknowledgment of those cures in the hand-writing of the patients themselves, (can better evidence be adduced?) to bear me out in what I advance.
There are four kinds of Contraction, viz.
1st. Contractura ab infiammatione, when it arises from inflammation.
2d. Contractra a spasmo, called also tonic spasm and cramp, when it depends upon spasm.
3d. Contractura ab antagonistas paraliticos, from the anta-gonist muscles losing their action.
4th. Contractura ab acrimonid irritante, which is induced by some irritating cause.
There is also another description of contraction, called contractura articularis, originating from a disease of the joint.
One and all of these species of disease have repeatedly come before me, and in no instance has the patient left me unbene -fitted, and seldom not effectually cured. I might exceed the limits of this book, were I to venture on the different methods resorted to by the faculty, to afford relief in the various stages of this complaint: yet I challenge the most successful and effective mode practised in physic or surgery, to prove so many cases of beneficial treatment, as I can by the simple but efficacious remedy of Shampooing.
I will proceed at once to the evidences upon which I rest my humble claims, and which, I trust, will justify my previous assertions.
1, Mary Edwards, hereby declare, that in January last I was attacked by a severe cold and fever which settled in my limbs, contracting the joint of my right knee, so that I was wholly unable to walk, and causing the most excruciating pain:- after using Mr. Mahomed's Baths about fifteen times, I was greatly relieved, and am now in a rapid state of recovery.
Brighton, Sep. 12th, 1814.
Sir, - In compliance with your request of yesterday's date, I feel much pleasure in stating, for the benefit of whomsoever it may concern, that, in the year 1816, I was completely crippled, from contractions in both legs, and that from the use of your Bath for six weeks, I found myself greatly recovered. In the years 1817 and 1818, I likewise tried them again, for a shorter time - that is to say, in 1817, for a week, and 1818, a fortnight, and both times derived great benefit; insomuch, as I am now, with the exception of a little stiffness, as well as ever. Begging my best respects to Mrs. Mahomed,
I remain, dear Sir,
Your most humble servant,
Edward Oxenford.
Camberwell, March 1, 1819.
I, Alfred Lucas, was cured of lameness in the knee and contraction, by a regular course of Vapour Baths and Shampooing, in the short space of six weeks, and have left my crutches with Mr. Mahomed.
Brighton, July 31st, 1819.
 
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