Malaria and malarial diseases / George M. Sternberg.

  • George Miller Sternberg
Date:
1884
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Malaria and malarial diseases / George M. Sternberg. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    33/346 page 19
    injected, the piilse mounted to 90 or 100, the skin became yelloio, the tongue cUy and glassy ; perspiration abundant, accompanied by a cold breath and exceedingly feeble pulse. Afterward followed intense prostration, with intolerable pain in the back, loins, and region of the livei-. The poor pa- tient, after twenty or thii-ty hoiu-s, died in a state of collapse similar to that of cholera. Another character of this fever was its tendency to relapse, to occur at all seasons of the yeai-, in dry, elevated localities, as well as in those which were low and damp, and to be accompanied by hemorrhages of all sorts. TTe have additional evidence that this malai'ial fever of Mauritius was not identical with the endemic malarial fevers of the region where it prevailed as an epidemic, in the account of Barat, who states that an epi- demic ai-ose in 1869 on the Island of Keunion, which was supposed to have been borne over by the wind from Mauritius. From April 7th to July 23d, 4,118 people, out of a population of 23,000, were attacked with the disease, and no other cause could be found for it, seeing that the state of the soil, and all other conditions that could exert any influence in its production, had remained imchanged. ' Who can doubt that this epidemic of 1867 was due to a new etiological element which had been introduced into this j)reviously healthy island in the Indian Ocean? and who can help suspecting that the imusual out- break at Natal, which occm-red the following year, was due to the same cause ; that the ai-rival of a ship from Port Louis, disabled with Mauii- tius fever, bore a very essential relation to this outbreak ? Or, who that is famihai- with the clinical characters and mode of dissemination of yellow fever would hesitate to name this disease if the epidemic recorded had occuiTed m the West Indies instead of in the Indian Ocean ? IkDEmC CONTINTJED FeVEES IK THE UnITED StATES WHICH HAVE BEEN At- TBIBUTED TO MaLAEIA, _ As in Other parts of the world, so in the United States much confusion exists as to the etiology of endemic continued fevers not presenting the characteristic features of weU-defiued enteric fever. This difference of opimon IS manifested, however, among those who contribute to our peri- odical hterature, rather than in the writings of our standard medical au- thors. Thus Dr. George B. Wood, in his Practice of Medicine (ninth edition), commences his article on enteric fever as follows ■ This is a common febrile affection, presenting a considerable diversity of symptoms U-l in general, a certain recognizable character, and iDrobably con- stituting m aU Its forms, one and the same disease. It is the ordinai-v endemic fever of continental Em-ope, and of those portions of the United mingled with the latter withm their own special hmits. On another page VT. W ood says : In some mstances, the disease presents no other symptoms WV. T'^^'*^^ characteristic phenomena of a slight marrhcea or tendency toward it, some meteorism of the abdomen, and per- fw,f rose-colored spots. The tongue remains soft, moist, and whitish rilo? . ' 5 ^^ n vomiting, no considerable nervous disorder, no fn^iJ^ri , T' '.S/'^'peculiar symptoms usually de- Pominated typhous. The disease runs its course in two or three weeks, ' Hertz, in Ziemasen's Cyclopjcdia, vol. ii., p. 572.
    No text description is available for this image
    No text description is available for this image
    No text description is available for this image