Selected monographs.

Date:: 1888

Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Selected monographs. Source: Wellcome Collection.

178/440 (page 160)

Tiave clioseu for consideration—a question wliicli, beyond a doubt, lias been for a dozen years, and is still, exciting an interest here, to wbicli British medical men are compara- tively strangers. Hence the tours of inspection undertaken from time to time by distinguished continental physicians, with a view either to weaken the conclusions that may be drawn from facts already published, or to dispel a scepticism which ihese facts, so limited in number, have not been able to overcome. Hence also the objections naturally enough raised to the information collected by them, on the ground ■of defective opportunities, hurried observation, and imper- fect knowledge. Henco, in short, such reflections on the doubtful character of the information received from English authors, as are made by Chomel in his ' Lectures on Typhoid Fever,' those of MM. Gauthier de Claubry and Montault, in their prize essays on the 'Analogies and Differences between Typhus and Typhoid Fevers,' and the following words of Valleix,^ in apology for citing American instead of English :anthors, in reference to fevers prevalent in Great Britain. We admit that it would have been better to have presented u series of observations on typhus made in England itself; but where can we find them ? These observations will derive great additional weight from a brief consideration of the work of Dr. Tweedie, entitled ' Clinical Illustrations of Fever,' which is referred to by most of the French writers on the subject, and whence a o-reat part of their ideas on English typhus is drawn. I confess I have been puzzled, in perusing the above-named treatise, to find out what definite meaning the distinguished anthor attaches to the word fever; whether he under- stands by it a symptom produced by a local affection, or a distinct disease arising from a specific cause. His valuable remarks upon contagion, and his strictures upon the doc- trines of Broussais, would lead to the latter, while the cases detailed give countenance to the former supposition. I cannot better or more shortly give an idea of the cause ot my difficulty, than by giving an analysis of the cases Of ^73 patients who died, 54 were inspected. Of the latter