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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    and in those climates, where the dogmas of the schools, and the timidity of practitioners, had nearly proscribed it. In this point of view, the accumulation ot lacts will firmly support the rising edifice of a more rational and successful mode of treatment than has formerly hcen employed, and Dr. Burnett's work therefore, entitles him to the thanks and esteem of the public. The second part of the work opens with a sketch of the Author's observations and practice in the Me- diterranean, while serving on board the Goliath, Diadem, Athenienne, and finally, as physician to the fleet. In the year 1799, a part of the Goliath's crew, that had been employed in watering the ship at Marsa Scala, in the Island of Malta, suffered an attack of bilious remittent fever, the prominent symptoms of which were, nausea, vomiting, head-ache, flushed face, full and frequent pulse, thirst, white tongue, and, in most cases delirium. The patients were liberally evacuated on their complaining, and the bleeding repeated according to the urgency of tiie symptoms; an open state of the bowels was preserved, and a mild diaphoresis kept np. Clisters were applied to tlie nape of the neck and forehead, and a strict antiphlogistic regimen pursued. This soon produced a cessation of the pyrexia, when tonics and a well-regulated diet completed the cure, p. 132. In the succeeding year forty of the Diadem*s crew were similarly affected at Port Malion, and so speedily was a remission procured by the free use of tlie lancet, tliat I iiad only occasion to send two or three to the hospital, p. 133. Dr. B. here acknow- ledges that the use of emetics in a few of the first cases was highly prejudicial, a fact that will be expe- rienced in the fevei's of most warm climates. In this fever, small doses of calomel and antimonial powder were given with advantage, after liberal evacuations; 2#