A treatise on the fevers of Jamaica, with some observations on the intermitting fever of America, and an appendix, containing some hints on the means of preserving the health of soldiers in hot climates [and notes to the treatise] / By Robert Jackson.

  • Robert Jackson
Date:
1795
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A treatise on the fevers of Jamaica, with some observations on the intermitting fever of America, and an appendix, containing some hints on the means of preserving the health of soldiers in hot climates [and notes to the treatise] / By Robert Jackson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    a-fever, for inftancey begins in the evening, or in the’ courfe of the night, the day following ‘is generally: reckoned the firft day of the difeafe, by this author.—- _ But this is notall.—Some of the cafes/are’ plainly re-: lated from mémory; and others are’ only parts of cafes, related by different perfons. ‘This’ want of accuracy, where it is fcarcely poffible to be too cir-’ cumftantial, neceflarily: breeds confufion, and prd-) diicés an appearance of irregularity, which does hot. actually exift. Hence we find inconfiftency in the! general doctrine, as delivered in different ‘parts’of the: works, which have been afcribed to Hippocrates ; at the fame time, that there is'a want of that cireumftantial’ detail in the particular parts, from which only we'can' be enabled to.form an opinion. I have’ read over’ - with much attention the cafes of fevers, recorded in’ _ the Epidemics; but I.frequently found myfelf unable® to trace the difeafe in its progrefs. ‘Though evidently’ fubject to periodical movements, it was not always: in my power to lay hold of the type; yet wherever® it was poffible to attain this exactnefs, I have ‘the’ fatisfaction to add, that I conftantly found the move ments of nature to be uniform. They were the fame’ in the iflands of the Archipelago, as in the ifland of' Jamaica:—If they* appeared in fome inftances' to. be: different, it was perhaps principally owing: to this,’ that the Greek phyfician had left fome part of the dif- eafe undeferibed..) yee] slugienr aber _ From what I have juft now faid, we can have’ no* hefitation in concluding, that the opinion of Hippo-' crates, on the fubject of critical days, is neither pre- cife in any one part, nor confiftent in the whole.’ The’ doctrine, however, in its beft digefted form, is the’ following: viz. That odd days have a remarkable’ _ power in: terminating fevers; but more particularly,’ that the great critical revolutions happen at quater-' nary periods. ‘Thus the moft eminent critical’ days,’ are the fourth, the feventh,. the eleventh, the four-'
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