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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    In the course of the year included in this Report, exclusive of the assistance which I received from some of our clinical clerks, 1 myself made daily reports of nearly three hundred cases of fever, and I also superintended many of the dissections which are annexed to this paper : my opportunities of observa- tion were considerable, and I was not neglectful of them. The reader, however, is advertised, that while I have been anxious to note every thing worthy of remark, I affect to be nothing more than a re- porter. I leave the higher office of arranging and systematizing to others. The year I8I7 was a very unproductive one. Although the seasons were rather more propitious to the husbandman than in 1816, the prevailing character of the weather was similar, for in both years there fell an immensity of rain, the atmosphere being cloudy and cold. In I8I7 there probably fell nearly as much rain as during the corresponding months of the preceding year ; but then, although there was not much difference of atmospheric temperature, the evaporation in 1S17 was considerably greater. I11 short, in the year 1817» as in 18] 6, the order of the seasons was inverted, the winters in both being remarkably mild and open, the springs ungenial, and the summers wet, cloudy and cold, and in both years there was but little employment for the poor, while at the same time provisions and fuel were scarce and of bad quality. I11 the three first months of 1818, particularly January and March, there was much stormy and wet weather. In March there were great