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.

    17/94 (page 13)
    variety of dysentery, which originates in causes that are also productive of continued fever. In the beginning of September 1818, when I un- derstood that there were many cases of dysentery in the Hardwicke Fever Hospital and the Richmond General Penitentiary, I made a report to that effect to the late Governors of the House of Industry, and at the same time I suggested the expediency of removing all patients who laboured under dysentery from the fever wards to wards better suited to their accommodation, observing that although equal at- tention, to cleanliness and ventilation was required in dysentery and in fever, yet that the fever wards were too cold for patients affected with bowel com- plaints ; that the fever patients were disturbed, and the atmosphere of the fever wards was vitiated by the frequency of the calls to go to stool, and the efflu- via of the evacuations which are peculiar to dysen- tery ; that according to many professional men dy- sentery is an infectious disease, and might be com- municated to the convalescents and servants of the Fever Hospital, and thus add to the difficulties of providing for the admission of the destitute sick, which wrere already great; and finally, that the pa- tients in dysentery had become so numerous as to prevent the advantageous working of the Fever Hospital. In consequence of this representation, orders were given by the Governors of the House of Industry, whom I always found most attentive to every sug-