The influence of tropical climates on European constitutions: being a treatise on the principal diseases incidental to Europeans in the East and West Indies, Mediterranean, and coast of Africa (Volume 2).

  • Johnson, James, 1777-1845.
Date:
1824
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The influence of tropical climates on European constitutions: being a treatise on the principal diseases incidental to Europeans in the East and West Indies, Mediterranean, and coast of Africa (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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    the remainder could be shipped off for England, where, in all probability, most of them perished! Whereas out of 1242 cases of fever, only 58 died, and a very small number were invalided. This authentic document will speak volumes on the climate of the Mediterranean. In no other possible way could so fair a calculation be made, as to the relative preva- lence of complaints, as in a fleet, where the crews of ships are subjected to a similarity of regimen, occu- pation, clothing, and discipline unknown in civil life, or even in the best regulated army. That the abrupt vicissitudes of the climate under Consideration were extremely productive of pulmo- nary consumption, the government, and the medical officers of our fleets and hospitals have long been aware5 but in private practice, this is little known; and many valuable lives are annually sacrificed by the very means designed to prolong their range. An ingenious little Thesis has lately been written in Latin by Dr. Sinclair, formerly a surgeon in the Royal Navy, on the Mediterranean Phthisis, from which I shall translate and condense a few passages. Sijmptoms.—Dr. S. divides the disease into two stages, the inflammatory and suppurative. The first often advances on the patient with insidious pace, and without giving much alarm :*—frequently w ith symp- toms of catarrh, or slight pleurisy, as rigors, lieats and chills alternately—thirst—cougli—fever. JSy de- grees tliese symptoms become more marked, and attended with lassitude—pains in the back, loins, and * Dr. Burnett, while speaking of pneumonia in the Mediterra- i\ean, observes that— He wishes to caution the practitioner against the insidious form of the milder attack of this disease, which •• is but too often considered of little moment—as a catarrh—and «the cure entrusted to small doses of antimony and a great coat *« often to nature. With pain has he witnessed the ell'ects of this •• treatment in the melancholy increase of consumptive cases, whicii the summer's heat has brought before him.—Preface to Is't Edition,