A History of Epidemics in Britain, Volume 2 (of 2): From the Extinction of Plague to the Present TimeCreighton, Charles
History
A History of Epidemics in Britain, Volume 2 (of 2): From the Extinction of Plague to the Present Time
Creighton, Charles
Epidemics -- Great Britain -- History
Even such fever as there was in Britain from 1804 to 1817 was not all
certainly typhus. The high death-rates at the Manchester fever-hospital in
1804 and 1805 (1 death in 7·5 cases and 1 death in 5·25 cases) may mean a
certain proportion of enteric cases in those years. “From 1804 to 1805,”
says Ferriar, “many cases were admitted of a most lingering and dangerous
kind.... Many deaths took place from sudden changes in the state of the
fever, contrary to the usual course of the disease, and only imputable to
the peculiar character of the epidemic. Similar cases occurred at that
time in private practice.” Next year, 1806, there was an epidemic among
the troops at Deal, described under the name of “remittent fever,” which
Murchison claims to have been enteric[300]. In September, 1808, says
Bateman, several were admitted into the London House of Recovery, with
malignant symptoms; “and some severe and even fatal instances occurred in
individuals in respectable rank in life.” He still uses the name of
typhus; but he is aware that the cases of continued fever, especially in
the summer and autumn of 1810, had often symptoms pointing to a
bowel-fever rather than to a head-fever[301].
The years 1807 and 1808 appear to have been the most generally unwholesome
during this period of comparative immunity from fever; they were marked by
the occurrence of dysenteries, agues, and infantile remittents, as well as
of fevers of the “typhus” kind. The chief account comes from
Nottingham[302]. The cases of “typhus” there were very tedious, but not
violent, nor attended with any unfavourable symptoms, only one case having
petechiae, and all having diarrhoea. The following table of admissions
for various kinds of fever (as classified by Cullen) at the Nottingham
General Hospital, 25 March, 1807, to 25 March, 1808, shows the
preponderance of “synochus” and next to it, of infantile remittent:
_Admitted to the Nottingham General Hospital, 1807._
Intermittent fever 7
Synocha 10
Typhus 27
Febris nervosa 26
Synochus 155
Febris infantum remittens 88
Dysentery 5
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