Influenza, or, Epidemic catarrhal fever : an historical survey of past epidemics in Great Britain from 1510-1890 / by E. Symes Thompson.
- Date:
- 1890
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Influenza, or, Epidemic catarrhal fever : an historical survey of past epidemics in Great Britain from 1510-1890 / by E. Symes Thompson. 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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![this year, and of other years, where the cause is the same, I must start with a remark upon those effluvia which are usually got rid of by the means of insensible perspiration. ISTow, these may be checked by the effects of cold, for cold contracts the pores of the skin and throws the transpiration inwards. So thrown in, it falls upon the lungs. These it irritates; and hence cough is speedily excited. Furthermore, when the hot and recrementitious exhalations of the blood are prevented from escaping from the skin, fever is lit up, for so great may be such abundance of these same vapours, that the lungs may be insufficient for their elimination. Or the natural heat may be increased by the adventitious heat of either the regimen or the remedies, so that fuel may be added to the flame, and the patient, who was already inclined towards fever, may be thrown into it at once. Now, whatever may be the character of the stationary fever which rages during the year in question, the same will be the character of this secondary fever, that origin- ates in the cough. Dependent upon this cough, it may present certain peculiar symptoms. Its general character, however, will be that of the family into which it is adopted. ]^ow, it is clear, that whatever may be the origin of the cough, it is not the cough alone that must be attended to. The fever must be looked to as well. 4. On this principle, I treated my patients as follows:— If the cough had not yet brought on the usually concomitant fever, I was satisfied with forbidding animal food and fer- mented liquors. I recommended moderate exercise, fresh air, and occasional draughts of a cooling pectoral ptisan. This was sufficient for checking the cough and anticipating the fever. The abstinence from meat and wine, and the refrigerant draught, tempered the blood, and made it less ready for the febrile impressions, whilst the exercise opened the pores of the skin, and supplied the natural and genuine passage for the exhalations. These were dispersed, and the patient was the better for their dispersion. o. As to the allaying of the cough, the application of narcotics and anodynes was not wholly safe. And just as dangerous was the use of spirituous liquors and hot cordials. Both modes acted alike. They entangled and hardened the matter of the cough, so that those exhalations which, by](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21914527_0039.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
