Report on the malignant disease, which prevailed in the city of New-York in the autumn of 1805 : addressed to the Governor of the State of New-York / by Edward Miller, M. D., resident physician for the city of New-York.

  • Miller, Edward, 1760-1812.
Date:
[1806]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report on the malignant disease, which prevailed in the city of New-York in the autumn of 1805 : addressed to the Governor of the State of New-York / by Edward Miller, M. D., resident physician for the city of New-York. 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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    very brief, exact, and appropriate description of the dis- mse. A greater number are said to die of yellow fever on the sixth than any other day of the disease ; and it very frequently happens that appearances of yellowness are discovered on the fifth, which, at that period, and accom- panied by hiccough, constitute a fatal symptom. When the description which Hippocrates gives of Causus, or Burning Fever, is duly recollected, and there is con- nected with this fever the occurrence of yellow skin, ac- companied with hiccough, on the fifth day ; a character results, which can apply to no other disease in the world but yellow fever. And it would be exceedingly difficult, in so few words, to present a more expressive delineation of that distemper. The terrible symptom of black vomiting is also fre- quently mentioned by Hippocrates, and represented as being of fatal import. He uses the phrases t*.exxtix y,oXr> black bile, i^tXctvx epelov black vomit, and p-eXatiu* ey-floi the vomiting of black matter. In the twelfth section of his Prognostics, he asserts, that if the matter vomited be of a livid or black colour, it betokens ill. In the first section of the first book of his Coan Prognostics, he enu- merates black vomiting in a catalogue of the most fatal symptom?. And also in the fourth section of the same book, he considers porraceous, livid or black vomiting as indications of great malignancy.* The importance of this conclusion is further illustrated and confirmed by adverting to the well known fact, that Hippocrates practised physic for a considerable portion of his life, in parts of Greece situated nearly in the same i parallel of latitude with those in the United States, where the yellow fever has produced its greatest ravages. See Medical Repository, Hex, II. Vol. 3, page 107. * £< JV ety to en.evp.eioi voetroeifoc., jj ireXiot, * /w.£A«ev, on tc-v t) Tevltvv tmv %ti>[*,XT*>vy ve,tu£(i» x,Ci) 7rov>ipov ellctt.