A short account of the origin, symptoms, and most approved method of treating the putrid bilious yellow fever, vulgarly called the black vomit : which appeared in the city of Havanna, with the utmost violence, in the months of June, July, and part of August, 1794 / as practised by Mr. John Holliday, an English surgeon, resident in that city.

  • Holliday, John.
Date:
1796
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A short account of the origin, symptoms, and most approved method of treating the putrid bilious yellow fever, vulgarly called the black vomit : which appeared in the city of Havanna, with the utmost violence, in the months of June, July, and part of August, 1794 / as practised by Mr. John Holliday, an English surgeon, resident in that city. 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.)

    26/40
    t u 1 we let flip the opportunity of doing it in the begin- ning, we mufl defer it, till the decline of the difeafe : but at this time, when the flrength is exhaufted by the length of the difeafe, one cannot venture upon ftrong purgatives, and weak ones do more harm than good, as they irritate the humors, and draw off only the thinner and more wholefome parts. In page 134* Hippocrates further obferves, that in very acute dif- eafes, we ought not to wait till the urine is thick, but if the matter be turgid, we mould purge on the • very day in which the fever comes on, for fear we fhould lofe the opportunity. Hence we fee, as in page 132, Hippocrates's own practice, was conforma- ble to his doctrine in this point : for of the two ftages of fevers, in which purging is allowable, viz. the be- ginning and the decline, he generally chofe the firft. No more need be faid to prove, that the time in which Hippocrates commonly chofe to purge was the beginning of acute difeafes. In page 154, If we alk with what view Galen made ufe of evacuations in fe- vers, fuch as purging, fweating, &c. the anfwer is, that he trod in the fteps of Hippocrates in this, as he diet in all other refpects. For he obferved the flgns of the trugefcency and concoction of the humors, and from thence he drew his indications for purging as Hippo- crates had done before him! (Vid. Comment, in Aphr. 23.) Agreeably hereto, he thought the prop- er time for purging was, either in the very beginning of a fever, when the matter was turgid and the difeafe fo acute as to make it dangerous to flip the op- portunity, as in the inftance of a peftilential fever, &c* or when figns of concoction appeared in the urine, as * Thus in a Quartan he fays, Et fi Co&ionis morbi in dicia apparuerinti tunff purgare oportet, non femel tantum, fed f»pius, fi fuerit necefTarium. Art Curat ad Glaucon, Caj>. H