The diseases of tropical climates and their treatment : with hints for the preservation of health in the tropics / by J.A.B. Horton.

  • Horton, James Africanus Beale, 1835-1883.
Date:
1874
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The diseases of tropical climates and their treatment : with hints for the preservation of health in the tropics / by J.A.B. Horton. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by King’s College London. The original may be consulted at King’s College London.

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    have been less than sixteen pounds. Sometimes we meet with cases in which there are enlargements of both the spleen and hver^ and this is met with in persons who have been some time in the tropics^ and who have had frequent attacks of Ague. Through the enlargement of the spleen, the blood be- comes im]Doverished, the effect of which is manifested in some individuals by the asthenic suppurative inflamma- tion of the cutis vera and siibdermoid areolar tissue, commonly known as boils. Congestion, or active en- largement of the spleen, exercises a powerful influence in keeping up the morbid trains of action of the original fever, and in producing relapses. ' In more than 500 cases of Ague, in which he observed the state of the spleen, writes M. Piorry, “ I came to the conclusion, that the organ is invariably enlarged during the progress of the fever, and that by the use of quinine, the spleen diminishes in size; that its reduction in size bears some relation to the quantity of quinine taken; that the effect it produces upon the fever is in proportion to 4 the reduction of the spleen; that the disease is cured simultaneously ■vyith the subsidence of the splenic en- largement, and that the fever is apt to run on so long as the spleen exceeds its normal size.^'’ Dr. Billing remarks, that the cause which prevents the cure of Ague is visceral disease, which may either have existed before the intermittent, or might have arisen during its continuance. The Ague and the visceral disease, whether of bowels, liver, spleen, or lungs, &c., act reciprocally as cause and effect. The Ague aggravating the visceral disease by causing congestion during each