Medical Inquiries and Observations, Vol. 3: The Second Edition, Revised and Enlarged by the AuthorRush, Benjamin
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Medical Inquiries and Observations, Vol. 3: The Second Edition, Revised and Enlarged by the Author
Rush, Benjamin
Medicine; Yellow fever -- Pennsylvania -- Philadelphia
I proceed with reluctance to inquire into the comparative success of the
French practice. It would not be difficult to decide upon it from many
facts that came under my notice in the city; but I shall rest its merit
wholly upon the returns of the number of deaths at Bush-hill. This
hospital, after the 22d of September, was put under the care of a French
physician, who was assisted by one of the physicians of the city. The
hospital was in a pleasant and airy situation; it was provided with all
the necessaries and comforts for sick people that humanity could invent,
or liberality supply. The attendants were devoted to their duty; and
cleanliness and order pervaded every room in the house. The reputation of
this hospital, and of the French physician, drew patients to it in the
early stage of the disease. Of this I have been assured in a letter from
Dr. Annan, who was appointed to examine and give orders of admission
into the hospital, to such of the poor of the district of Southwark, as
could not be taken care of in their own houses. Mr. Olden has likewise
informed me, that most of the patients who were sent to the hospital by
the city committee (of which he was a member) were in the first stage of
the fever. With all these advantages, the deaths between the 22d of
September and the 6th of November, amounted to 448 out of 807 patients
who were admitted into the hospital within that time. Three fourths of
all the blacks (nearly 20) who were patients in this hospital died. A
list of the medicines prescribed there may be seen in the minutes of the
proceedings of the city committee. Calomel and jalap are not among them.
_Moderate_ bleeding and purging with glauber's salts, I have been
informed, were used in some cases by the physicians of this hospital. The
proportion of deaths to the recoveries, as it appears in the minutes of
the committee from whence the above report is taken, is truly melancholy!
I hasten from it therefore to a part of this work, to which I have looked
with pleasure, ever since I sat down to compose it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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