The more the pains were confined to the bones and back, the less danger was to be apprehended from the disease. I saw no case of death from the yellow fever in 1793, where the patient complained much of pain in the back. It is easy to conceive how this external determination of morbid action should preserve more vital parts. The bilious fever of 1780 was a harmless disease, only because it spent its whole force chiefly upon the limbs. This was so generally the case, that it acquired, from the pains in the bones which accompanied it, the name of the "break bone fever." Hippocrates has remarked that pains which descend, in a fever, are more favourable than those which ascend[110]. This is probably true, but I did not observe any such peculiarity in the translation of pain in this fever. The following fact from Dr. Grainger will add weight to the above observations. He observed the pains in a malignant fever which were diffused through the whole head, though excruciating, were much less dangerous than when they were confined to the temples or forehead[111]. [110] Epidemics, book ii. sect. 2. [111] Historia Febris Anomalæ Batavæ Annorum 1746, 1747, 1748, cap. i. I saw two cases in which a locked jaw attended. In one of them it occurred only during one paroxysm of the fever. In both it yielded in half an hour to blood-letting. I met with one case in which there was universal tetanus. I should have suspected this to have been the primary disease, had not two persons been infected in the same house with the yellow fever. The countenance sometimes put on a ghastly appearance in the height of a paroxysm of the fever. The face of a lady, admired when in health for uncommon beauty, was so much distorted by the commotions of her whole system, in a fit of the fever, as to be viewed with horror by all her friends. VI. The senses and appetites were affected in this fever in the following manner. A total blindness occurred in two persons during the exacerbation of the fever, and ceased during its remissions. A great intolerance of light occurred in several cases. It was most observable in John Madge during his convalescence. A soreness in the sense of touch was so exquisite in Mrs. Kapper, about the crisis of her fever, that the pressure of a piece of fine muslin upon her skin gave her pain. Peter Brown, with great heat in his skin, and a quick pulse, had no thirst, but a most intense degree of thirst was very common in this fever. It produced the same extravagance of expression that I formerly said was produced by pain. One of my patients, Mr. Cole, said he "could drink up the ocean." I did not observe thirst to be connected with any peculiar state of the pulse. George Eyre and Henry Clymer had an unusual degree of appetite, just before the usual time of the return of a paroxysm of fever.