When once the disease has obtained a foothold in the body its course,
like one of Napoleon's campaigns, is short, sharp, and decisive.
Beginning typically with a vigorous chill, sometimes so suddenly as to
wake the patient out of a sound sleep, followed by a stabbing pain in
the side, cough, high fever, rapid respiration, the sputum rusty or
orange-colored from leakage of blood from the congested lung, within
forty-eight hours the attacked area of the lung has become congested; in
forty-eight more, almost solidified by the thick, sticky exudate poured
out from the blood-vessels, which coagulates and clots in the air cells.
So complete is this solidification that sections of the attacked lung,
instead of floating in water as normal lung-tissue will, sink promptly.
The severe pain usually subsides soon, but the fever, rapid respiration,
flushed face, with or without delirium, will continue for from three to
seven or eight days. Then, as suddenly as the initial attack, comes a
plunge down of the temperature to normal. Pain and restlessness
disappear, the respiration drops from thirty-five or forty to fifteen or
twenty per minute, and the disease has practically ended by "_crisis_."
Naturally, after such a furious onslaught, the patient is apt to be
greatly weakened. He may have lost twenty or thirty pounds in the week
of the fever, and from one to three weeks more in bed may be necessary
for him to regain his strength. But the chief risk and danger are
usually over within a week or ten days at the outside.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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