An inaugural dissertation on the influenza : submitted to the examination of the Rev. John Ewing, S.T.P. provost ; the trustees and medical professors of the University of Pennsylvania, in order to obtain the degree of Doctor of Medicine, on the eighth day of May A.D. 1793 / by Robert Johnston, of Philadelphia, member of the American Medical Society.

  • Johnston, Robert, 1750-1808.
Date:
MDCCXCIII [1793]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An inaugural dissertation on the influenza : submitted to the examination of the Rev. John Ewing, S.T.P. provost ; the trustees and medical professors of the University of Pennsylvania, in order to obtain the degree of Doctor of Medicine, on the eighth day of May A.D. 1793 / by Robert Johnston, of Philadelphia, member of the American Medical Society. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    The violent pains which in many pcrfons affected the limbs, very much refembled the rheumatifm ; but thofe which were felt in the loins and thighs, were remarkably revere. Profufe fweats over the whole body very gene- rally appeared at fome time or other during the courfe of the diforder, and fometimes with obvious advantage. The pulfe was various; fometimes tenfe and quick, but feldom full- The fever remitted about the fourth or fifth day, but the cough often continued feveral weeks after every other fymptom had difappeared (4). The moft remarkable circumftances refpecling this dif- temper were the miliary and erysipelatous eruptions wnich in fome inftances, accompanied it, and the great tendency which the fever manifeiled to degenerate into Typhus. Although it affected perfons ofbothfexes, and of all ages, it was obferved that it feized few children below five years of age ; and a phyfician of this city, whofe practice is very extenfive, allures me that he remarked old people as well as children, were lefs fubject to the influenza than perfons in middle life. Diagnofis, The influenza is not likely to be confounded with any dif- ea'.e except the common catarrh, which [though it appears with nearly the fame fymptoms, and like it, often feems to come on in confequence of the application of cold] may be difcriminated from it, by coming on with more cold (4) Hippocrates in his Book of Epidemics has this paflage, in which there is a {hiking refemblance of circumftances, and fymptoms : Thofe who have coughs in the winter, and efpe- cially with the foutherly winds, are fubjecl: to fevers during their hawking up much thick matter ; but then they commonly / ceafe in five days. But coughs will extend to forty. Clifton's Hippocrates. Page 214.