A Treatise on Fever

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Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, and Green, 1830 - Fever - 436 pages

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Page 15 - Upon the whole," says this celebrated theorist, " our doctrine of fever is explicitly this. The remote causes are certain sedative powers applied to the nervous system, which, diminishing the energy of the brain, thereby produce a debility in the whole of the functions, and particularly in the action of the extreme vessels.
Page 15 - Such, however, is, at the same time, the nature of the animal economy, that this debility proves an indirect stimulus to the sanguiferous system; whence, by the intervention of the cold stage, and spasm connected with it, the action of the heart and larger arteries is increased, and continues so till it has had the effect of restoring the energy of the brain, of extending this energy to the extreme vessels, of restoring therefore their action, and thereby especially overcoming the spasm affecting...
Page 362 - Nature, with her burning sun, her stilled and pent-up wind, her stagnant and teeming marsh, manufactures plague on a large and fearful scale: Poverty in her hut, covered with her rags, surrounded with her filth, striving with all her might to keep out the pure air, and to increase the heat, imitates nature but too successfully; the process and the product are the same, the only difference is in the magnitude of the result.
Page 347 - ... matter, as they are disengaged in the process of putrefaction, enter into some new combination, and thus generate a new product, we are wholly ignorant. Of the composition of the poison, of the laws which regulate its formation, and of its properties when generated, we know nothing beyond its power to strike the human being with sickness or death. We know that, under certain circumstances, vegetable and animal substances will putrefy : we know that a poi183 son capable of producing fever •will...
Page 360 - The stench which arises from this and the mud together is intolerably offensive, and from this source the plague, constantly springing up every year, preys upon the inhabitants, and is stopped only by the return of the Nile, the overflowing of which washes away this load of filth.
Page 85 - Immediately the circulation is thus excited, the function! of secretion and excretion become deranged. The mouth is now dry and parched ; the tongue begins to be covered with fur ; thirst comes on ; the secretion of the liver, probably also of the pancreas, and certainly of the mucous membrane lining the whole alimentary canal, is vitiated, as is proved by the unnatural quantity, colour, and fetor of the evacuations ; the urine likewise is altered in appearance, and the skin is not more remarkable...
Page 380 - Bleeding in fever cannot be performed too early. The very first moment of excitement, could that be discovered, is precisely the moment when the employment of this powerful remedy would produce the greatest effect.
Page 164 - The giant," says an able writer, " that lies prostrate on the earth, mastered by superior power, has still a giant's strength, though he do not at that moment put it forth. Give him but the chance to throw off the load that keeps him, down, and he will soon show you that he is not weak.
Page 88 - ... organ of touch, is in a like morbid state. An impression barely sufficient in the state of health to produce sensation excites the feeling of tenderness, and alternations of temperature which in ordinary states are scarcely perceptible are painful. The senses of taste and smell, on the contrary, are nearly obliterated, owing to the altered condition of the membranes upon which the sensitive nerves are distributed. From the earliest attack of the disease the sleep is disturbed and unrefreshing...
Page 362 - But by far the most potent febrile poison, derived from an animal origin, is that which is formed by exhalations given off from the living bodies of those who are affected with fever, especially when such exhalations are pent up in a close and confined apartment. The room of a...

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