Yellow fever, considered in its historical, pathological, etiological, and therapeutical relations: including a sketch of the disease as it has occurred in Philadelphia from 1699 to 1854, with an examination of the connections between it and the fevers known under the same name in other parts of temperate, as well as in tropical, regions (Volume 2).

  • La Roche, R. (René), 1795-1872.
Date:
1855
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Yellow fever, considered in its historical, pathological, etiological, and therapeutical relations: including a sketch of the disease as it has occurred in Philadelphia from 1699 to 1854, with an examination of the connections between it and the fevers known under the same name in other parts of temperate, as well as in tropical, regions (Volume 2). 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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    Aurelianus, Fazio, Senac, Falconer, Crogan, Home, Oullcn, Lieutaud, Astruc, Huxbam, and many others, so far as regards pestilential, typhus, nervous, or petechial fevers. In our days, Dr. R. Hamilton, of Edinburgh, has shown the influence of panic in propagating contagious fever, as exhibited in the Magdalen Asylum of that city, in the spring of 1821.1 Lind, who, like Van- dermere and many others since that time, had pointed out the baneful effects of mental depressions in the production of scurvy and other camp and ship diseases, and the benefit arising from cheerful and buoyant spirits, remarks, in respect to the influence of the former in the production of autumnal fever, that it is quicker and more violent in hot and insalubrious situations than in purer and cooler air. A fit of passion, he affirms, often brings on an instan- taneous attack of fever; a violent fit of anger or grief will immediately pro- duce a jaundice or the yellow fever; the sight of a corpse, or any object of horror, or even a shocking story told to a person, have been often known, through an impression of fear upon the mind, to bring on delirium, some- times a violent vomiting and purging, which vomiting carried off the patient in twenty-four hours. In another work, the same author reiterates the sentiment, remarking that it is a received opinion that fear is a cause of itself sufficient to produce, in certain dispositions, a bad or malignant fever, there being many instances in besieged towns where no other reason could well be as- signed for the rise of malignant disorders than the dejection of spirits, grief, and panic of the inhabitants, occasioned by the bombardment and the appre- hensions of a violent death from some sudden assault of the enemy.9 I am not prepared to say, from personal observation, nor have I now leisure to examine, how far the opinion of Lind, as to the great injury arising from the action of the passions, under the circumstances mentioned, exclusive of some other agency, may be founded. Especially am I not prepared to admit, on so equivocal an authority as Lassis3—who, not content with discarding all idea of contagion, disbelieves the existence of infection and meteorological influences also—that nine-tenths of the mortality attributed to yellow and other fevers, should be ascribed to the effects of the fear and panic under which every one labours, to a greater or less extent, in times of epidemics. But there can be no doubt that such affections of the mind, as also most others which are incident to our nature, will be found to play an important part in the production and aggravation of the diseases of hot climates and of the summer season of temperate ones, whether in Hindostan, in Africa, in the West Indies, in this country, in Europe, or anywhere else. Upon this subject there can be no mistake. Facts and statements in relation to it will be found recorded in almost every publication extant on those diseases, and on none in a more striking manner than the one to which attention is more especially called on this occasion. Warren, after remarking that debauches are injurious, because the next day the spirits are prostrated, adds: But, 1 Med.-Chir. Trans, of Edinburgh, p. 296. t Op. cit. p. 149. 3 Causes des Maladies Epidemiques, p. 88; lb., Calamity rdsultant du Systenie de la Contagion, p. 9, &c.