The pathology of fever comprehends the morbid changes that take place in
the solids and the fluids of the body. It is probable that the changes
in the fluids are wholly dependent upon those which take place in the
solids, although the vitiation of the former must necessarily react
upon, and increase the derangement of the latter. If it be true, as is
highly probable, that the changes in the solids are beyond all
comparison of the greatest importance, as not only antecedents, but
_invariable_ antecedents, or causes, it may be considered fortunate that
our knowledge of their diseases is so much more advanced than our
knowledge of the diseases of the humours. The morbid changes of the
solids are ascertained with a great degree of exactness, it may almost
be said with a great degree of perfection; while those which occur in
the fluids are almost wholly unknown. Until very recently physicians
satisfied themselves with framing conjectures about their corruption;
and knowing with certainty no one vice that they possess, they
attributed to them a thousand. Attention is now awakened to the subject:
investigation is going on: and before long we shall probably know, with
some degree of precision, whether any changes really take place, and
what they are: but the researches which have hitherto been made are so
few and so imperfect, that it can hardly be said that a single point is
satisfactorily made out and firmly established.
In laying before the reader the pathology of the solids, as far as it is
yet ascertained, it is my most anxious wish to enable him constantly to
make for himself, as he proceeds, the association between the morbid
appearances that are found after death, and the symptoms that were
present during life. For this reason every case that is adduced to
illustrate any morbid change is preceded by a brief account of the
symptoms that were observed, day by day, at the bed-side of the patient.
For the sake of brevity however, no less than for that of clearness,
none but the essential are noticed. The daily reports, of which all the
cases cited, are exceedingly condensed forms, are full, and contain, as
they necessarily must contain, many repetitions with which it would be
worse than useless to burthen this account of them. Even the statement
of the remedies that were adopted (excepting in as far as they obviously
influenced the symptoms) is omitted, from the conviction that the mind
cannot attend without distraction, at one and the same time, to the
pathology and the treatment.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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