A treatise on the fevers of Jamaica : with some observations on the intermitting fever of America, and an appendix, containing some hints on the means of preserving the health of soldiers in hot climates / by Robert Jackson, M.D.

  • Jackson, Robert, 1750-1827.
Date:
1795
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A treatise on the fevers of Jamaica : with some observations on the intermitting fever of America, and an appendix, containing some hints on the means of preserving the health of soldiers in hot climates / by Robert Jackson, M.D. 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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    But though it ftill may be thought doubtful by fome, whether the autumnal fever of aguifh countries, and the endemic fever of Jamaica are characleriftically different, or effentially the fame difeafe; yet it is not i'o difficult to trace a fpecific refemblance, betweea this fever of the Weft Indies, and the prevailing en- demic of the iEgean Sea. The fever defcribed in the Epidemics of Hippocrates has every fr.rik.ing feature of the difeafe which is the fubjecr. of the following treatife. The general character is the fame ; the courfe and mode of termination are often alike. If the du- ration is fometimes different, it is probably much ow- ing to the more decifive practice of the moderns: for though it remains uncertain, whether a remedy has yet been difcovered, which abfolutely cuts fliortthe fe- ver of Jamaica in the midff. of its courfe •, yet no doubt remains, that there are various modes of treatment, which may,and actually do render the ordinary changes of the critical day, decidedly critical. The fevers of the iEgean Sea, as defcribed by Hippocrates, and of Minorca, as defcribed by the accurate Cleghorn, bear the neareft refemblance to the endemic of Sa- vanna la Mar. The fevers of Italy, of different parts of the continent of Aha, as defcribed by various wri- ters, as well as the fever of America, of which I have had perfonal experience, however obfcure their remifU uons, feem rather to be degenerated intermittents, than the difeafe defcribed in the following pages. But that I may not be thought to infift too much on this opinion, which few, perhaps, may confider as of much eonfequence, I fhall relate the hiftory of the fever of Savanna la Mar, as accurately as I can, leaving it to- others to determine, whether it fliould be confidered as an intermittent degenerated into a remitting form, in eonfequence of the greater heat of the climate, or allowed to poffefe fumething cbaraiteriftic in its owb nature.