Medical Inquiries and Observations, Vol. 3: The Second Edition, Revised and Enlarged by the AuthorRush, Benjamin
Science
Medical Inquiries and Observations, Vol. 3: The Second Edition, Revised and Enlarged by the Author
Rush, Benjamin
Medicine; Yellow fever -- Pennsylvania -- Philadelphia
_Sweats_ were more common in the remissions of this fever, than they were
in the year 1793, but they seldom terminated the disease. During the
course of the sweats, I observed a deadly coldness over the whole body to
continue in several instances, but without any danger or inconvenience to
the patient. In two of the worst cases I attended, there were remissions,
but no sweats until the day on which the fever terminated. In several of
my patients, the fever wore away without the least moisture on the skin.
The _milk_, in one case, was of a greenish colour, such as sometimes
appears in the serum of the blood. In another female patient who gave
suck, there was no diminution in the quantity of her milk during the
whole time of her fever, nor did her infant suffer the least injury from
sucking her breasts.
I observed tears to flow from the eye of a young woman in this fever, at
a time when her mind seemed free from distress of every kind.
V. I proceed next to mention the symptoms of this fever in the nervous
system.
Delirium was less common than last year. I was much struck in observing
John Madge, who had retained his reason while he was so ill as to require
three bleedings a day, to become delirious as soon as he began to
recover, at which time his pulse rose from between 60 and 70, to 96
strokes in a minute. I saw one case of extreme danger, in which a
hysterical laughing and weeping alternately attended.
I have before mentioned the frequency of mania as a symptom of this
disease. An obstinate wakefulness attended the convalescence from this
fever in Peter Brown, John Madge, and Mr. Cole.
Fainting was more common in this fever than in the fever of 1793. It
ushered in the disease in one of my patients, and it occurred in several
instances after bleeding, where the quantity of blood drawn was very
moderate.
Several people complained of giddiness in the first attack of the fever,
before they were confined to their beds. Sighing was less common, but a
hiccup was more so, than in the year before.
John Madge had an immobility in his limbs bordering upon palsy. A
weakness in the wrists in one case succeeded a violent attack of the
fever.
Peter Brown complained of a most acute pain in the muscles of one of his
legs. It afterwards became so much inflamed as to require external
applications to prevent the inflammation terminating in an abscess. Mrs.
Mitchell complained of severe cramps in her legs.
The sensations of pain in this fever were often expressed in extravagant
language. The pain in the head, in a particular manner, was compared to
repeated strokes of a hammer upon the brain, and in two cases, in which
this pain was accompanied by great heat, it was compared to the boiling
of a pot.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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