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
The weather was variable during the months of February and March. The
navigation of the Delaware was not completely opened until the latter end
of February. The diseases of these two months were catarrhs and bilious
pleurisies. The former were confined chiefly to children, and were cured
by gentle pukes, purges of calomel, and blood-letting. The last remedy
was employed twice in a child of Isaac Pisso, of six weeks old, and once
in a child of Thomas Billington, of three weeks old, with success.
On the 7th of April, I visited Mr. Pollock, lately from the state of
Georgia, in consultation with Dr. Physick, in a yellow fever. He died the
evening after I saw him, on the third day of his disease.
There was a snow storm on the 16th of April, and the weather was
afterwards very cold. Such leaves and blossoms as had appeared, were
injured by it.
On the 1st of May, the mercury in Fahrenheit's thermometer rose to 84°.
The weather, during the latter part of this month, and in June, was very
dry. On the 6th of June, Dr. Cooper lost a patient in the yellow fever,
near the corner of Twelfth and Walnut-streets. Mark Miller died with the
same state of fever on the 2d of July. About a dozen cases of a similar
nature occurred, under the care of different practitioners, between the
2d and 20th of this month, and all of them in parts of the city remote
from Water-street.
On the 19th of July, the weather was so cool as to render winter clothes
comfortable. A severe hail storm had occurred, a few days before, in the
neighbourhood of Wilmington, in the Delaware state.
On the 21st of the month, the ship Deborah arrived from one of the
West-India islands, and discharged her cargo in the city. She was moored
afterwards at Kensington, where the foul air which was emitted from her
hold produced several cases of yellow fever, near the shores of that
village.
In August the disease appeared in nearly every part of the city, and
particularly in places where there was the greatest exhalation from foul
gutters and common sewers.
In describing the disease, as it appeared this year, I shall take notice
of its symptoms as they appeared in the blood-vessels, alimentary canal,
the tongue, the nervous system, in the eyes, the lymphatic system, and
the blood.
The subjects which furnished the materials for this history were not only
private patients, but the poor in the city hospital, who were committed
to the care of Dr. Physick and myself, by the board of health.
I. The pulse was, in many cases, less active in the beginning of this
fever than in former years. It was seldom preternaturally slow. It
resembled the pulse which occurs in the first stage of the common jail
fever. Hæmorrhages were common about the fourth and fifth days, and
generally from the gums, throat, or stomach.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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