A TREATISE ON FEVER. BY SOUTHWOOD SMITH, M.D. PHYSICIAN TO THE LONDON FEVER HOSPITAL. LONDON: LONGMAN, REES, ORME, BROWN, AND GREEN, PATER-NOSTER ROW. 1830. PRINTED BY G. HAYDEN, Little College Street, Westminster. TO HIS GRACE THE DUKE OF SOMERSET, PRESIDENT; TO THE VICE-PRESIDENTS, TO THE TREASURERS, AND TO THE OTHER GENTLEMEN CONSTITUTING THE COMMITTEE, Of the London Fever Hospital; IN TESTIMONY OF HIS ADMIRATION OF THE DILIGENCE WITH WHICH THEY LABOUR TO PROMOTE THE PROSPERITY, AND THE CARE WITH WHICH THEY WATCH OVER THE INTERESTS OF THIS INSTITUTION; WHICH, IN THE MAGNITUDE OF THE BENEFITS IT CONFERS, NO LESS THAN IN THE INEXPENSIVENESS OF THE MEANS BY WHICH, THROUGH THEIR ECONOMY, IT IS ENABLED TO SECURE THEM, IS EQUALLED BY FEW ESTABLISHMENTS, AND SURPASSED BY NONE; THIS WORK IS INSCRIBED BY THE AUTHOR. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ PREFACE. The following Work is wholly of a practical nature: its object is to ascertain the real phenomena of Fever, and the most safe and effectual treatment of the disease. It was found impossible to include in this volume some researches of a statistical nature which it was at first intended to incorporate in the work. On looking over the account which has been given of the phenomena, I find that, by an oversight, I have omitted to make any mention of the peculiar odour which belongs to a fever-patient. It is so characteristic that a person, familiar with the disease, might in many cases be able to pronounce, merely from the odour of the effluvia that arises from the body, whether the disease were fever.