A case of typhus or ship fever, with remarks / By Wm. Ingalls.

  • Ingalls, William, 1769-1851.
Date:
1848
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A case of typhus or ship fever, with remarks / By Wm. Ingalls. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    11/32 (page 9)
    of the ephemera is, that the latter often consists of one paroxysm terminating within twenty-four hours, comprising a cold, hot, and sweating stage ; but its course, and in many respects the phe¬ nomena attending it, are at variance with this arrangement. The ephemera, as it is alleged by the best authorities, may often be protracted beyond twenty-four hours, without losing its diurnal character, which in intermittent fevers never happens. It is even said it may be prolonged beyond the third day before it is entitled to the denomination of continued fever. That a fever, the solution of which sometimes happens in six, eight, twelve or twenty-four hours, should receive a station in the order of continued fevers, or that it may be protracted three days without losing its epheme¬ ral character, by a fastidious logician would be considered a sole¬ cism. Nor, in my estimation, is the complexity of the subject re¬ lieved by Drs. Cullen and Fordyce, physicians of the first authority, describing the paroxysm of intermittent fever, as affording a perfect illustration of the ephemera. As the symptoms of a paroxysm of intermittent are analogous to the ephemera, it may be admissible to take the former as a repre¬ sentation of the latter; but as they owe their origin to different causes, it would have been better to have adhered to the descrip¬ tion of the ephemera, properly so called. However similar the symptoms of these diseases may appear, by close observation a distinction may be discerned. The commercial intercourse between Boston and places where intermittents are endemial, has afforded to practitioners numerous instances of this disease. Frequently the first attack has taken place in our city ; but there is such a decided difference between fevers originating in this place and those arising from the agency of marsh miasmata, I do not recollect a single instance in which the faculty have been mistaken with respect to the nature of the disease. In the intermittent, the symptoms are of a deeper “ grade ” ; the lassitude, stretching and yawning, which usually announce the at¬ tack, are more marked ; the cold fit in duration and intensity is greater, and is accompanied by a more severe tonic or clonic spasm of the diaphragm and abdominal muscles. The hot stage, the burning and frequent heat, is perhaps peculiar to this disease ; even the sweating stage may be distinguished by its being copious, and fi owing; in large fluid drops ; and the subsequent debility is less.