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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    Dr. Burnett very justly remarks, that if the fever is not early combated, or if treated as a typhoid af- fection, the appearances will be very different. The head-ache will be accompanied by stupor, and an indifference to surrounding objects; the eyes will have a duller look than usual, or have a yellow tinge spreading, more or less, rapidly to the neck and body. The tongue will be covered with a thick yellow coat, while it is brown and dry in the middle. The pros- tration will be considerable; the anxiety and pain in the limbs great; the uneasiness in the epigastric re- gion will be urgent, with bilious vomiting and ha- rassing singultus. In the severe attacks, says he, «< about the third day, there is often an appearance of complete remis- sion, but the evening puts an end to the delusion; an exacerbation takes place, with great increase of all the dangerous symptoms. Unhappily, this deceitful period has often been mistaken for a real remission of the symptoms, and tonics and stimulants have been given, with a view to prevent the recurrence of the paroxysm ; but vain, indeed, are all such efforts, they serve but to increase the malady, p. 8. As the disease advances, the pain and uneasiness about the epigastric region continue to increase; there is con- stant vomiting; considerable pain upon pressure, with restlessness and oppression at the prsecordia. The abdomen is likewise painful, with frequently thin, black, fcetid, and sometimes gelatinous stools. The suffusion, at first of a bright yellow, now assumes a darker hue, &c. p. 9. The symptoms which precede death in this fever, are pretty similar to those observable in the fevers of hotter countries, such as coffee-coloured vomiting, in- tolerable uneasiness in the epigastric region, hse- morrliages, subsultus tendinum, floccitatio, black en- crusted tongue and teeth, sinking of the pulse, cold extremities, and finally death, which terminates tiie