Observations on typhus : abridged from an essay submitted to the Faculty of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow in 1840 / by Andrew Anderson.

  • Anderson, Andrew, 1818-1870.
Date:
[1840]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Observations on typhus : abridged from an essay submitted to the Faculty of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow in 1840 / by Andrew Anderson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    met with. Anorexia occurred in every case. I'hose wMch occurred in more than 9-lOths of the cases were headache, thirst, lassitude, and rigors; the frequency being in the order of enumeration. Those of intermediate frequency were pains and cough. The symptoms occurring on the first day, in the majority of cases, are lassitude, rigors, and headache. Pains, thirst, nausea, pectoral oppression, abdominal pain, and diarrhoea, occur most frequently on the first day, although in fewer than half the cases. Anorexia is most frequent from the second to the fourth, and cough after the fifth day. Above i of the patients took to bed from the second to the fourth day; nearly | on the first; I on or after the fifth day. ' It is not, of course, intended to give a regular description of tne symptoms of fever; a few remarks only will be therefore made on some <)f the most interesting points. The Eruption.^Oi the 2,352 cases for the year from Oct. 1837 to Nov. 1838, the proportion of those with eruption to the whole num- ber of fever cases, was 80 to 100. It is, however, to be remarked, that in the first six months, this proportion was greater than in the following ones. In the former, too, the gross number of admissions was greatest; while of cases without eruption, the admissions are nearly the same for each month;—a new proof that since the eruption is proportional in frequency to the violence of the epidemic, it must be reckoned one of its most characteristic symptoms. The day of the fever on which the eruption appears is not easily ascertained in an hospital. I have observed it sometimes on the third, pretty often on the fourth, but most generally from the fifth to the eighth inclusive; occasionally much later. The date of its disappear*, ance was observed in 130 cases; from whi(ih it would seem to be most Irequent on the sixteenth, seventeenth, and twelfth days. The persistence, therefore, of the eruption is connected with its intensity, or in other words, with the severity of the disease; for that is always in the compound ratio of the copiousness and darkness of the eruption. In the severest cases, the eruption becomes petechial. Each spot, instead of disappearing, is fixed under pressure; and dis- section shows an effusion, under the cuticle, of blood, the gradual absorption of which gives rise to the changes in colour of the eruption from purplish to brownish red, and then to yellowish brown. These petechiae have a more angular form than the ordinary eruption. The eruption is usually most abundant on the chest, back, and abdomen; more sparing on the legs and arms; rarely seen on the face, hands, and feet. The eruption is necessary to constitute the disease: other symptoms may be absent. ■ ^ In 65 cases, carefully traced from before the seventh day of the disease, the following results were obtained:— Almost every case of fever is accompanied \jj some degree of bron- chitis; 5-13ths of the whole had increased bronchial secretion, and i great engorgement at least of the lungs. The duiness varies very much, and rapidly, from day to day, both in degree and in site, the changes in the lung in typhus being very rapid, for I have seen hepa- iization of nearly the whole right lung occur in one night The