A Treatise on the Plague and Yellow Fever: With an Appendix, containing histories of the plague at Athens in the time of the Peloponnesian War; at Constantinople in the time of Justinian; at London in 1665; at Marseilles in 1720Tytler, James
History
A Treatise on the Plague and Yellow Fever: With an Appendix, containing histories of the plague at Athens in the time of the Peloponnesian War; at Constantinople in the time of Justinian; at London in 1665; at Marseilles in 1720
Tytler, James
Plague -- Early works to 1800; Yellow fever -- Early works to 1800
The bile of people who died of ordinary malignant fevers was much less
powerful. A quantity (not mentioned how much, but probably a drachm)
mixed with four ounces of warm water, was partly injected into the
jugular vein of a dog, and a compress soaked in the rest of the liquor
applied to the wound. He appeared heavy and sleepy, and would neither
eat nor drink till the third day, when he did both willingly. On the
fourth day the compress fell off, the wound was found to be diminished
one half, and healed by degrees, the dog recovering perfectly. In
another experiment with the bile of a patient who had died of a
malignant fever, the dog not only had about a drachm of it put into a
wound in his thigh, but was made to swallow some of it; notwithstanding
which he was not seized with any distemper, and the wound healed in
fifteen days. This bile was as black as ink, in great quantity, and
very thick. In the other subjects it was of a deep green. In another
experiment, with the same bile applied on a compress, the dog likewise
escaped without any apparent disorder; but in a third, the animal died
in twenty-three hours, though at first he had shown no sign of being
affected, only that he seemed to be thirsty, and drank with greediness.
On opening him his heart was found still to beat with violence, and,
after the beating ceased, no blood was to be found in it, either in
the auricles or ventricles. “This liquor, crowded together in the
great vessels, appeared of a lively red, and very fluid, without any
of those concretions that we constantly observed in those who died of
the plague. Here appeared neither external nor internal marks of the
plague.” The bile of a person who had died of an erysipelas, injected
into the crural vein of a dog, produced no bad effect. A dog was killed
by half a drachm of Hungarian or blue vitriol injected into the jugular
vein. He died in universal convulsions: the heart was full of grumous
blood, reduced to a kind of thick pap, but without any clots. The bile,
applied to two wounds in another dog, produced no bad effect.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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