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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    Venesection sometimes lowered the temperature ; frequently it produced no change, and in several in- stances the thermometer rose two or three degrees after blood-letting, even when that measure greatly relieved the patient. It is clear that venesection was not contraindicated by excess of temperature alone, since, in nineteen patients of a temperature which raised the thermometer above 104°, in whom blood- letting was practised, there was no instance of death. In examining the disordered state of the vital functions during the summer of 1817, with a view to the prognostics of continued fever, we derived more information from the state of the breathing than from the pulse, and more from the pulse than from the temperature of the body. Among such patients as were admitted early, and were treated upon a strictly antiphlogistic plan, there were many instances of crisis on the third or fourth day, the disease appearing as a febricula, or perhaps rather as an extended ephemera ; and these speci- mens of mild fever occurred even among those who came from houses which afforded us instances of the disease in its worst form : the disease, however, was fatal, in a large proportion, among such as came from houses which we supposed were infected, and in these persons relapses were very frequent. On the other hand, in many who denied having had any communi- cation with patients in fever, the disease was attended with severe symptoms, and ran the usual course. In a word, the fevers which we supposed arose from