Some account of the last yellow fever epidemic of British Guiana / by Daniel Blair ; edited by John Davy.

Date:: 1850

Credit: Some account of the last yellow fever epidemic of British Guiana / by Daniel Blair ; edited by John Davy. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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$fever patients, is the necessity for using the hoisted suture after the operation, by which alone haemorrhage could be prevented. * The materia medica of the practitioner in yellow fever might, after the experience of the entire epidemic, be almost included in the following list, viz. a compound of calomel and quinine in the proportion of 20 grains of the former to 24 grains of the latter, and known by my prescription at the Seaman's Hospital, and on the boards at the head of the patients, and in the case books of the resident surgeon, by the symbol 20 and 24.— Castor oil; water; cantharides blister; Rhenish wine; chalk mixture (without any essential oil); creosote; liquor potassa; ammoniacal paste; sinapisms; musk; carbonate of ammonia; spirit of mendererius ; magnesia ; laxative enemeta and lemonade.^ The dietetics were barley-water, sago, arrowroot, tea, chicken- broth, beef-tea, and toasted bread (unbuttered)4 The above includes all that is peculiar in the established treatment of normal yellow fever. Complications were treated on general principles. The efficacy of the remedies above enumerated had been determined chiefly by empirical treatment, and the use of them was known before their rationale or modus operandi. A casual view will show that they comprise febrifuges (but what is not so obvious, one of special and extraordinary power,) evacuants, refrigerants, counter-irritants, cordials, antacids and vegetable acids. The 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th classes refer to the treatment of the first stage of the disease; the 5th to the inter- * [The history of transfusion, whether of blood or of saline solutions, does not appear to be in favour of their remedial power. Moreover, what success can be expected from trials of the kind in moribund cases, and who would consider himself justified in making them except in such cases ?]—Ed. •j [In Barbados, during the late epidemic, trial was made in the advanced stage of the disease, of chlorate of potash, and also of nitrate of silver, and of spirits of turpentine, in small doses, but without apparent good effect. The hope was that the chlorate might act beneficially on the blood; and the ni- trate of silver and the turpentine on the stomach. The saline plan of treat- ment was also tried, and likewise with negative results. In the yellow fever which prevailed in 1828, superacetate of lead, it is reported, was tried by a medical officer, Mr. O'Callaghan, in the early stage of the disease, when the stomach was irritable, and with advantage. It was given in grain doses every half hour, and, in a few instances, in doses of four grains, dissolved in water; purgatives were afterwards administered.]—Ed. \ [Salt was relished, in the yellow fever of Barbados, used in rather large proportion, in beef-tea or chicken-broth ; and it was believed to be service- able.] —Ed.$

Some account of the last yellow fever epidemic of British Guiana / by Daniel Blair ; edited by John Davy.

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