Thermic fever, or sunstroke. / by H.C. Wood.

  • Wood, H. C., Jr. (Horatio C.), 1841-1920.
Date:
1872
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Thermic fever, or sunstroke. / by H.C. Wood. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

    18/154 (page 12)
    necessary factors in the production of coup de soldi. There can be no doubt that in this country a large number of the cases occur in the persons of habitual drinkers; but the most temperate are not exempt. In India, among the European soldiery, the tem- perate would seem at times to afford even the larger proportion of victims, because the vagabond drunkard soldiers are notoriously shirkers of duty. Thus, of eight fatal cases in the 71st Highlanders, occurring on the 7th of May, 1858, six were sober men, one a “ tolerably free liver,” and one a “ free liver” (Crawford, Madras Quarterly, No. 2, p. 30, i860). Dr. Crawford also says (p. 315), “I can point to many soldiers whose lives are spent in an unvarying round between the canteen, the guard- room, and the prison, and yet they do not die of in- solation at a time when our best non-commissioned officers are victims to the apoplectic form of ardent fever.” Both he and Dr. Barclay also insist that malarial poison is in most instances of insolation not present, and does not when existent strongly predispose to attacks. The real and sole producing cause of the disease is, therefore, Heat. There are, however, various pre- disposing causes, which greatly aid the exciting cause probably by lessening the powers of resist- ance to it. First in importance among these is a