Illustrations of typhus fever in Great Britain : the result of personal observations made in the summmer of 1853, with some remarks as to its origin, habits, symptoms, and pathology : to which is appended a brief account of the re-appearance of typhus in Boston in the winter of 1857-58 / by J.B. Upham.

  • Upham, J. B. (Jabez Baxter), 1820-1902.
Date:
1858
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Illustrations of typhus fever in Great Britain : the result of personal observations made in the summmer of 1853, with some remarks as to its origin, habits, symptoms, and pathology : to which is appended a brief account of the re-appearance of typhus in Boston in the winter of 1857-58 / by J.B. Upham. 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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    found in its indigenous haunts, with its manifestations and habits here as an exotic. I therefore entered the hospital, for a brief pe* riod, as a student of fever, carefully noting what I saw of the dis- ease, in as many cases as it was possible to follow up, and learn- ing incidentally, by the best means in my power, the previous his- tory, condition and circumstances of each patient.* The mass of materials thus collected have remained untouched till now. But the recent and somewhat sudden appearance of the fever in the wards of the Massachusetts General Hospital, hints that some local interest may again, perhaps, attach to this subject. It is not my purpose to give an extended memoir of the fever, nor to say much upon the question of treatment; and to analyze and classify the facts collected would require more space than I feel justified to occupy here. I intend only to portray the disease as I found it; and as it may at all times be found in the wards and dead-house of a fever hospital in Great Britain. The subjoined cases may be regarded as models of the affection, in its various forms of severity. They were treated by the physicians of the Hospital, Drs. Tweedie and Smith. In noting these cases, I have here,.as elsewhere, endeavored to follow the maxim of Sydenham, so aptly quoted by Jenner, to note them accurately, in all their minuteness;—in imitation of the industry of those painters who represent, in their portraits, the smallest moles and the faintest spots. I make no apology, then, for what might be called their tedious minuteness and particu- larity. Case I.—General Abstract of the Case. A boy, aged 15 years, being in ill-conditioned quarters, in immediate proximity to a case of the fever, experienced sudden debility, headache, anorexia— rigors—confusion of intellect—-sleeplessness—rash on the sixth day—suffused eyes—tongue coated with yellowish fur, inclining to brown—chest resonant—respiration 32 to 40—bowels mostly regular, some fulness and tenderness—surface hot, dry, pungent— * It was here that Dr. Wm. Jenner had, a short time previously, carried on, and perfected his elaborate investigations of fever, from which resulted his well-known classification, into four distinct and separate diseases, of the affection so long confounded under the term continued fever by some of the most eminent authorities of Great Britain. I had been led to the same conclusions, so far as relates to the non-identity of typhus and typhoid, by the evidence forced upon my senses in the epidemic of 1817-48, when the two diseases not infrequently lay side by side in the wards of the same hospital, and whose phenomena were noted, pari passu, at the bedside and in the dead- house.