Medical Inquiries and Observations, Vol. 4: The Second Edition, Revised and Enlarged by the Author — John Shaqi
Medical Inquiries and Observations, Vol. 4: The Second Edition, Revised and Enlarged by the AuthorRush, Benjamin
History
Medical Inquiries and Observations, Vol. 4: The Second Edition, Revised and Enlarged by the Author
Rush, Benjamin
Medicine; Yellow fever -- Pennsylvania -- Philadelphia
III. I saw no unusual marks of the disease in the nervous system. The
mind was seldom affected by delirium after the loss of blood. There was
a disposition to shed tears in two of my patients. One of them wept
during the whole time of a paroxysm of the fever. In one case I observed
an uncommon dulness of apprehension, with no other mark of a diseased
state of the mind. It was in a man whose faculties, in ordinary health,
acted with celerity and vigour.
Dr. Caldwell informed me of a singular change which took place in the
operations of his mind during his recovery from the fever. His
imagination carried him back to an early period of his life, and engaged
him, for a day or two, in playing with a bow and arrow, and in amusements
of which he had been fond when a boy. A similar change occurred in the
mind of my former pupil, Dr. Fisher, during his convalescence from the
yellow fever in 1793. He amused himself for two days in looking over the
pictures of a family Bible which lay in his room, and declared that he
found the same kind of pleasure in this employment that he did when a
child. However uninteresting these facts may now appear, the time will
come when they may probably furnish useful hints for completing the
physiology and pathology of the mind.
Where blood-letting had not been used, patients frequently died of
convulsions.
IV. The senses of seeing and feeling were impaired in several cases. Mrs.
Bradford's vision was so weak that she hardly knew her friends at her
bed-side. I had great pleasure in observing this alarming symptom
suddenly yield to the loss of four ounces of blood.
Several persons who died of this fever did not, from the beginning to the
end of the disease, feel any pain. I shall hereafter endeavour to explain
the cause of this insensible state of the nerves.
The appetite for food was unimpaired for three days in Mr. Andrew Brown,
at a time when his pulse indicated a high grade of the fever. I heard of
several persons who ate with avidity just before they died.
V. Glandular swellings were very uncommon in this fever. I should have
ascribed their absence to the copious use of depleting remedies in my
practice, had I not been informed that morbid affections of the lymphatic
glands were unknown in the city hospital, where blood-letting was seldom
used, and where the patients, in many instances, died before they had
time to take medicine of any kind.
VI. The skin was cool, dry, smooth, and even shining in some cases.
Yellowness was not universal. Those small red spots, which have been
compared to moscheto bites, occurred in several of my patients. Dr. John
Duffield, who acted as house surgeon and apothecary at the city hospital,
informed me that he saw vibices on the skin in many cases, and that they
were all more or less sore to the touch.
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