A concise history of the febrile diseases which occurred in the practice of the late Elijah F. Reed,... between the years 1789 and 1837 / [Elijah F. Reed].

  • Reed, Elijah F. (Elijah Fitch), -1847.
Date:
1848
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A concise history of the febrile diseases which occurred in the practice of the late Elijah F. Reed,... between the years 1789 and 1837 / [Elijah F. Reed]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    6/44 (page 4)
    The first eight years of my practice (from the spring of 1789 to 1797) were spent in Vernon. During this time, the prevailing fevers were what were then called inflammatory, or the synocha and synochus of Cullen. The former were generally treated suc¬ cessfully, with bleedings, emetics, cathartics and nitre or antimo- nials in nauseating or smaller doses; terminating commonly in about seven or eight days, by sweating and purging. The latter class of cases commonly terminated by sweating or purging about the close of the second week, on a more moderate antiphlogistic treatment, seldom requiring much support during the last week of disease. In the winters and springs of these years, cases of pleurisy were of frequent occurrence ; commencing, commonly, with severe rigors ; these were soon succeeded by great heat, intense thirst and acute pain in some part of the thorax, much increased by inspira¬ tion. The pulse was always full and always hard, under the hard¬ est pressure of the finger ; seldom counting more than ninety or ninety-five in a minute ; the tongue was early covered with a thick brown or yellow fur, and was dry and hard. There was often for a day or two in the commencement, but little cough or expectoration, the matter first expectorated was commonly a mere mucus, sometimes streaked, but never mixed with blood ; this matter in the course of the disease acquiring more consistence, and becoming more puriform., and commonly streaked with blood. In the treatment of this disease, a very free and early bleeding would sometimes remove most of the pain ; but to do this and render the pulse much softer, which was indispensably necessary, not unfrequently two or three bleedings would be needed in the course of the first twenty-four hours. The after treatment con¬ sisted in freely blistering the chest; in keeping the bowels free until the excitement was much reduced ; and in the use of nitre or antimonials, with squills or other common pectorals. The disease commonly terminated by sweating in the course of a week or ten days. I recollect but one protracted case, which proved fatal. The patient was an elderly man, was sick two or three weeks—the last half of the time was rather comatose, his tongue was dry and hard and his teeth were covered with sordes. I have thought this patient might have been too much reduced in the first stage of disease and that he was not, later in the disease, sufficiently supported. In the spring of 1794, there were a few cases of scarlatina, which, with one exception, were mild, and terminated favorably under a moderate use of tonics, with little or no evacuation, in a week or ten days. The malignant case proved fatal. I saw the patient, a female aged twelve years, on the morning of the 3d of May; she had com¬ plained only of soreness of throat the preceding night; it was now much swollen and filled with aphthae of a pale color; her tongue