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
I. There was but little difference in the state of the pulse in this
epidemic from what has been recorded in the fevers of 1793 and 1794. I
perceived a pulse, in several cases, which felt like a soft quill which
had been _shattered_ by being trodden upon. It occurred in Dr. Jones and
Dr. Dobell, and in several other persons who had been worn down by great
fatigue, and it was, in every instance, followed by a fatal issue of the
fever. In Dr. Jones this state of the pulse was accompanied with such a
difficulty of breathing, that every breath he drew, on the day of his
attack, he informed me, was the effort of a sigh. He died on the 17th of
September, and on the sixth day of his fever.
The action of the arteries was, as usual, very irregular in many cases.
In some there was a distressing throbbing of the vessels in the brain,
and in one of my patients a similar sensation in the bowels, but without
pain. Many people had issues of blood from their blisters in this fever.
I saw nothing new in the effects of the fever upon the liver, lungs,
brain, nor upon the stomach and bowels.
II. The excretions were distinguished by no unusual marks. I met with no
recoveries where there were not black stools. They excoriated the rectum
in Dr. Way. It was a happy circumstance where morbid bilious matter came
away in the beginning of the disease. But it frequently resisted the most
powerful cathartics until the 5th or 7th day of the fever, at which time
it appeared rather to yield to the disorganization of the liver than to
medicine. Where sufficient blood-letting had been previously used, the
patient frequently recovered, even after the black discharges from the
bowels took place in a late stage of the disease.
Dr. Coxe informed me, that he attended a child of seventeen months old
which had _white_ stools for several days. Towards the close of its
disease it had black stools, and soon afterwards died.
Several of my patients discharged worms during the fever. In one instance
they were discharged from the mouth.
A preternatural frequency in making pale water attended the first attack
of the disease in Mr. Joseph Fisher.
A discharge of an unusual quantity of urine preceded, a few hours, the
death of the daughter of Mrs. Read.
In two of my patients there was a total suppression of urine. In one of
them it continued five days without exciting any pain.
There was no disposition to sweat after the first and second days of the
fever. Even in those states of the fever, in which the intermissions were
most complete, there was seldom any moisture, or even softness on the
skin. This was so characteristic of malignity in the bilious fever, that
where I found the opposite state of the skin, towards the close of a
paroxysm, I did not hesitate to encourage my patient, by assuring him
that his fever was of a mild nature, and would most probably be safe in
its issue.
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