An account of the manner of inoculating for the small pox in the East Indies: With some observations on the practice and mode of treating that disease in those partsHolwell, J. Z. (John Zephaniah)
History
An account of the manner of inoculating for the small pox in the East Indies: With some observations on the practice and mode of treating that disease in those parts
Holwell, J. Z. (John Zephaniah)
Smallpox -- Prevention; Smallpox -- Vaccination
A day or two before the seizure, the patient finds his appetite fall
off, feels an unaccountable lassitude, and failure in the natural
moisture of the mouth, is low spirited without any apparent cause, and
cannot sleep as usual; but having no acute complaint whatsoever, nor
preternatural heat, that should indicate a fever, he attributes the
whole to the heat of the season, is satisfied with fasting and
confinement to his house, or goes abroad amongst his friends to "shake
it off," as the common phrase is; but on the third day, finding every
one of these symptoms increase, he begins to think something is really
the matter with him, and the Physician is called in: thus the only
period is lost wherein art might be of any use; for in the course of
eighteen years practice I never knew an instance of recovery from this
genuine fever, where the first three days had elapsed without
assistance, and the patient in this case dyed on the fifth or seventh
day. In some, this fever is attended with a full, equal, undisturbed
pulse, but obviously greatly _oppressed_; in others, with a low and
_depressed_ one, but equal and undisturbed also, and yet both required
the same treatment. New comers in the profession, have been often
fatally misled by the full pulse, which they thought indicated the loss
of blood; they followed the suggestion, the pulse suddenly fell, and
when that happens from this cause, the art of man can never raise it
again, the patient dies on the fifth or seventh day; and the consequence
was exactly the same, if Nature, being overloaded, attempted to free
herself of part of the burden by a natural hæmorrhage, or by the
intestines, on the second or third day, (which I have often seen) they
proved equally fatal as the launcet. Until the close of the sixth day
the skin and urine preserved a natural state; but if at this period of
the fever the skin suddenly acquired an intense heat, and the urine grew
crude and limpid, it was a sure presage of death on the seventh. The
natural crisis of this fever, when attacked in the very beginning, and
treated judiciously, was regularly on the eleventh day, and appeared in
a multitude of small boils, chiefly upon the head, or in small watery
bladders thrown out upon the surface of the skin, but in the greatest
abundance on the breast, neck, throat, and forehead; both of these
critical appearances are constantly preceded, on the tenth day, by a
copious sediment and separation in the urine. If by any inadvertent
exposure to the cold air, these critical eruptions were struck in, the
repelled matter instantly fell upon the brain, and convulsions and death
followed in a few hours, and small purple spots remained in the places
of the eruptions. Such is the _genuine putrid nervous fever of Bengall_,
which never gave way properly to any treatment but that of blisters
applied universally, supported by the strongest alexipharmics: sometimes
I have seen the crisis (by unskilful management) spun out to the
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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