A new inquiry into the causes, symptoms, and cure, of putrid and inflammatory fevers : with an appendix on the hectic fever, and on the ulcerated and malignant sore throat. ... / By William Fordyce.

  • William Fordyce
Date:
1777
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A new inquiry into the causes, symptoms, and cure, of putrid and inflammatory fevers : with an appendix on the hectic fever, and on the ulcerated and malignant sore throat. ... / By William Fordyce. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    97/252 (page 77)
    7 7 Sea. 18.] HARD AND EQUAL PULSE. more certainly indicatory of the exiftence of an inflammatory fever, than the uniform hardnefs and equality along with quicknefs of thepulfe: and yet it never 'muft be forgotten, that where the lungs or inteftines are obftrudted by fizy blood, or real inflammation, you cannot judge of the degree of either by feeling the pulfe alone; for in the inflam¬ mation of thofe vifcera, and in the phrenitis after the difeafe has gone on for fome time, but efpecially when the cerebellum has become affefled, the pulfe is not found to mark fufficiently either the ftate of blood, or the quantity of difeafe or danger: nor can I doubt, but that the worft confequences have often arifen from the ftate of the pulfe’s having milled the practitioner in the above-mentioned inflammatory fevers. A thorough knowledge of the nature of fizy blood, and of the confequences which follow its not being drawn away in fufficient quantity in fuch cafes, faves or deftroys the patient. There is another miftake, and no uncommon one, attending fuch a ftate of the blood, that many phyflcians, even fkilful and reputable men, riIk their patient’s life to fave their own reputation, by not exceeding a given number of bleedings, becaufe the vulgar confider four or five as the utmoft length to which bleeding ought to be carried, even in the mod prefling circumftances. I believe I fhall be feconded by the belt judges, in afterting that very many cafes occur where double the num¬ ber of bleedings are not too much, and for which I