Medical report of the Whitworth Hospital, containing an account of dysentery, as it appeared in the latter end of 1818 / by J. Cheyne.

Date:
1821
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Medical report of the Whitworth Hospital, containing an account of dysentery, as it appeared in the latter end of 1818 / by J. 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.

    10/94 (page 6)
    dysentery was as one to ten. I learn from staff-sur- geon Eagle that a few cases of dysentery occurred in the 16th lancers and 97th regiment at Clonmell, in August and September 1818, but of late years, as this gentleman observes, dysentery has not pre- vailed among the troops in Clonmell or Kilkenny to any extent worth remarking. In the following interesting communication from Dr. Geary, a correspondence is shown in the season at which dysentery appeared in Limerick, in the severity of the disease, and in its connection with fever, but a difference is observable in the year. Dr. Geary says that dysentery first appeared as an ac- companiment to the epidemic fever in September, 1817 ; in November it was most fatal. At that pe- riod numbers both in town and country, as well as in the Fever Hospital, were affected with the dis- ease. In January 1818, the use of the General Mi- litary Hospital was obtained from Government, to which, when the males were removed, almost every individual was seized with the complaint, which seemed attributable to the dampness of the house. The mortality during the first three weeks was 38. This, however, was checked by keeping up good fires in every ward. The dysentery was more ob- servable among the poor as an attendant on the Epidemic fever than in the higher orders of society. It frequently arose during convalescence from fever, and in such it was most severe ; in these it was in ge- neral connected with rigors, with sudden and fixed pain in the bowels, which mostly yielded to bleeding