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
The weather on the 19th, 20th, 21st, and 22d days of July was very warm,
the mercury being at 90° in Fahrenheit's thermometer. The fevers of this
month were all accompanied with black discharges from the bowels. Mr.
Kittera, one of the representatives of Pennsylvania in the congress of
the United States, in consequence of great fatigue on a warm day, was
affected with the usual symptoms of the yellow fever. During his illness
he constantly complained of more pain in the left, than in the right side
of his head. His pulse was more tense in his left, than in his right arm.
During his convalescence, it was more quick in the left arm, than it was
in the right. He was cured by a salivation and the loss of above 100
ounces of blood. His head-ach was relieved by the application of a
bladder half filled with ice to his forehead.
Most of the cases of bilious fever, which came under my notice, were
attended with quotidian, tertian, or quartan intermissions. In a few of
my patients there was a universal rash.
Dr. Woodhouse informed me, that he had seen several instances in which
the yellow fever appeared in the same place in which some soldiers had
laboured under the dysentery. These facts show the unity of fever, and
the impracticability of a nosological arrangement of diseases.
The cholera infantum was severe and fatal, in many instances, during this
month. It yielded to blood-letting in a child of Mr. Conyngham, which was
but four months old. In a child of seven weeks old which came under my
care, I observed the coldness, chills, hot fits, and remissions of the
bilious fever to be as distinctly marked as ever I had seen them in adult
patients. In a child of Mr. Darrach, aged 5 months, the discharges from
the bowels were of a black colour. I mention these facts in support of an
opinion I formerly published, that the cholera infantum is a bilious
fever, and that it rises and falls in its violence with the bilious fever
of grown persons.
About the latter end of this month and the beginning of August, there
were heavy showers of rain, which carried away fences, bridges, barns,
mills, and dwelling-houses in many places. Several cases of bilious
yellow fever occurred in the month of August. In one of them it was
accompanied with that morbid affection in the wind-pipe which has been
called cynanche trachealis. It was remarkable that sweating became a more
frequent symptom of the fevers of this month than it had been in July.
Hippocrates ascribes this change in the character of bilious fevers to
rainy weather. Perhaps it was induced by the rain which fell in the
beginning of the month, in the fevers which have been named.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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