North American Medical and Surgical Journal, Vol. 2, No. 3, July, 1826Various
History
North American Medical and Surgical Journal, Vol. 2, No. 3, July, 1826
Various
Medicine -- Periodicals
1st. Bilious fever is almost always a remittent fever, presenting
regular exacerbations, and, unless arrested by medical aid or some
effort of nature, running its course, in a progressive manner, either to
a happy or fatal termination; whereas the yellow fever is almost
invariably a continued fever, presenting obscure and irregular, or even
_no_ remissions. On the fourth day, it generally presents so perfect a
remission, as to cause the patient, in many cases, to imagine himself
perfectly free from disease, and induce him to get up, and even
sometimes to walk out. This remission, which sometimes amounts to an
intermission, so far as an experience of upwards of forty years can
authorize me to decide, is never found to attend in bilious fever, in
which, if there be any remission, and recurrence of the unpleasant
symptoms, the former is always a real convalescence, and the latter an
accidental relapse.
2nd. The red colour of the eye, to which I have alluded above as
occurring in the early stage of the yellow fever, and its peculiar
yellow tinge in the after part of the disease, are different from the
redness and yellowness of the same organ in bilious fever; in the first
stage of which the eye presents a more fiery redness, and in the
subsequent period, a more saffron yellowness.
3d. The colour of the skin in the two diseases presents also some
difference, being more constantly noticed in yellow fever, and
disappearing much more rapidly than in bilious fever. In yellow fever,
moreover, it assumes, most commonly, a yellowish-brown or even mahogany
tinge; whereas in bilious fever, when it occurs, it does not differ from
the ordinary jaundice colour, of a lighter or deeper shade.
4th. These fevers may likewise be distinguished by an attention to the
state of the intellectual faculties, and of the muscular strength; these
remaining often unimpaired to the last in yellow fever, whereas, in a
very large majority of cases of bilious fever, the mind becomes soon
involved in the disorder of the system, and the greatest muscular
debility prevails, even from the very onset of the attack.
5th. The matter vomited might of itself serve to distinguish the two
diseases. Independently of the difference we shall notice when speaking
of the black vomit, we may mention that patients complain, even
sometimes from the commencement of the attack, of the acidity of the
vomited matter; whereas in bilious fever, the mouth is bitter, and the
matter ejected of the same taste.
6th. As a further mark of difference, we may state, that, in yellow
fever, the tongue, except at the tip, the skin, and the pulse are
sometimes little altered; whereas in bilious fever they are usually
pretty much so.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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