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
In addition to the mild articles of diet, mentioned by Dr. Poissonnier, I
found bread and milk, with a little water, sugar, and the pulp of a
roasted apple mixed with it, very acceptable to my patients during their
convalescence. Oysters were equally innocent and agreeable. Ripe grapes
were devoured by them with avidity, in every stage of the fever. The
season had been favourable to the perfection of this pleasant fruit, and
all the gardens in the city and neighbourhood in which it was cultivated
were gratuitously opened by the citizens for the benefit of the sick.
The drinks were, cold water, toast and water, balm tea, water in which
jellies of different kinds had been dissolved, lemonade, apple water,
barley and rice water, and, in cases where the stomach was affected with
sickness or puking, weak porter and water, and cold camomile tea. In the
convalescent stage of the fever, and in such of its remissions or
intermissions as were accompanied with great languor in the pulse,
wine-whey, porter and water, and brandy and water, were taken with
advantage.
Cold water applied to the body, cool and fresh air, and cleanliness,
produced their usual good effects in this fever. In the external use of
cold water, care was taken to confine it to such cases as were
accompanied with preternatural heat, and to forbid it in the cold fit of
the fever, and in those cases which were attended with cold hands and
feet, and where the disease showed a disposition to terminate, in its
first stage, by a profuse perspiration. It has lately given me great
pleasure to find the same practice, in the external use of cold water in
fevers, recommended by Dr. Currie of Liverpool, in his medical reports of
the effects of water, cold and warm, as a remedy in febrile diseases. Of
the benefit of fresh air in this fever, Dr. Dawson of Tortola has lately
furnished me with a striking instance. He informed me, that by removing
patients from the low grounds on that island, where the fever is
generated, to a neighbouring mountain, they generally recovered in a few
days.
Finding a disagreeable smell to arise from vinegar sprinkled upon the
floor, after it had emitted all its acid vapour, I directed the floors of
sick rooms to be sprinkled only with water. I found the vapour which
arose from it to be grateful to my patients. A citizen of Philadelphia,
whose whole family recovered from the fever, thought he perceived evident
advantages from tubs of fresh water being kept constantly in the sick
rooms.
OF TONIC REMEDIES.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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