Medical Report of the Hardwicke Fever Hospital for the year ending on the 31st March 1818, including a brief account of an epidemic fever in Dublin / by John Cheyne.

Date:
1818
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Medical Report of the Hardwicke Fever Hospital for the year ending on the 31st March 1818, including a brief account of an epidemic fever in Dublin / by John Cheyne. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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

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    It appears from this table, first, That there were as many instances of excess of temperature during the month of August and first week of September, while epigastric tenderness predominated, as during the months of March, April, May, June and July, while the affection of the lungs was the predominant symptom of the early period of fever. Secondly, That when excess of temperature took place, the circulation wras generally, but not always, proportion- ately quickened : thus in thirty-two cases of the fore- going forty, in which the pulse was counted, there were nine patients in whom it did not exceed 104, which was about the average frequency of the pulse on the day of admission during the summer. Thirdly, That respiration wras even less affected during the existence of excess of temperature than the circulation: in twenty-two cases of forty, the frequency of the breathing was ascertained ; and in thirteen of these cases it did not exceed 30 in the minute, the average frequency of respiration being about 30. Fourthly, That in forty patients, in whom the temperature ex- ceeded 104, there was only one death. In order to give this remark its proper value, it ought to be ob- served, that, between the third of March and the third of September, thirteen persons died of the fever in wards 1 and 4, out of two hundred and fifty, in whom the temperature w7as ascertained on the day of admission, and from the following statement it will appear that in a majority of these fatal cases the temperature did not exceed 100o.