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

  • Ingalls, William, 1769-1851.
Date:
1848
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

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

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    have distributed fevers into genera, and Dr. Good allows the gene¬ ra of those writers no higher rank than that of species, Dr. Watson, among the more recent writers, instead of adopting the nosological arrangements of the above physicians, assumes the ground that the genera of the former and species of the latter are mere varieties of a specific disease. “We hear,” Dr. Watson says, “continually, in and out of the profession, different species of fever spoken of. By the public, typhus fever, brain fever, bilious, low, nervous. And systematic writers are to the full as particular : mucous fever, ataxic, adynamic, gastro-enteric, and so forth. Now, admitting that fever shows itself under various forms, I am persuaded that the effect upon the mind of all this subdivision is bad and hurtful. It encourages a disposi¬ tion, already too prevalent, to prescribe for a disease according to its name. There is no line of genuine distinction between continued fevers that can be relied upon. They run insensibly into each other ; and are traceable often to the same contagion.” Here it seems, according to this doctrine, ephemera, synocha, synochus and typhus are traceable often to the same contagion ; and, of course, admit of the same treatment; a doctrine, which, in a great measure, mili¬ tates with the established mode of practice. That there is a speci¬ fic difference, however, between these diseases, the Doctor virtually acknowledges in the following sentence. “ Although fever is, as I have related, a specific disease, it assumes divers forms ; and so dissimilar are some of its phases that they might seem to belong to totally different maladies.” Beside the defection of Drs. Good and Tv atson from the classifi¬ cation of the older nosologists, Dr. Southwood Smith proceeds further in the reduction of the genera, species and varieties; he does not hesitate to allege there is but one fever. “ The more we investigate the subject,” he says, “ the more satisfied we shall be¬ come,.that continued fever is one disease, and only one, however varied or even opposite the aspect it may present; but that it differs in intensity, in every different case, and that this, and this alone, is the cause of the different forms it assumes.” These laudable at¬ tempts, however, to simplify or render less complex the classification of fevers, will not contribute much in affording a logical definition of fever, until the seat be ascertained with anatomical certainty. Beat.—To illustrate my views in relation to the cause and seat 1*