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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    ferer,] by the early use of the lancet and purgatives ; cold and tepid affusion he likewise found serviceable, as auxiliaries. In some cases, copious and sudden affusion produced a diminution of febrile heat, sweats, and a remission. In several of the patients, lie men- tions calomel as having had verij excellent effecls. In one case of great danger, benefit ajjpearcd to be de- rived from the inunction of inercnriaL ointment on the epigastric region, p. 149.* i have already stated my doubts respecting the propriety of classing all Mediterranean fevers un- der the head of *' bilious remittent^*' as otir autiu)r has done, and my belief that a great many of them occur- red totally independent of marsh miasmata. The fol- lowing extracts will support this opinion. Mr. Allen, Surgeon of the hospital at Malta, after describing the general symptoms of a fever which broke out on board the Pomonc, and remarking, that The head and liver seemed to be the principal viscera affected in this fever, goes on thus: « The Weazle sloop, refitting at the dock-yard, has also sent us about thirty, with similar symptoms to the Pomonc's. Our method of treatment has been, in the fii-st instance, by the abstraction of thirty ounces of blood, the exhi- bition of a cathartic, and a bolus composed of calomel and antimonial powder, of each two grains, twice a- day ; the mist, salin. In the evening, the bleeding, if necessary, was repeated. Next day, if the symptoms required it, recourse was again had to abstraction of blood, a blister applied to the epigastric region, and the febrifuge medicines continue<l. I consider this fever to have been brought on by intemperance and exposure to heat, constituting the bilious or yellow fever of the island. It is not contagious,'* p. 168. In a subsequent fever, in the Weazle, Mr. Ward- * See Dr. Denmaik'3 Paper on the Mediterranean Fever in the Mcdico-Cliinirgical Transactions, and Dr. Boyd's Paper on the Minorca Fever in a subsequent sectioH.