Copy 1, Volume 2

The study of medicine. Containing all the author's ... improvements / [John Mason Good].

  • John Mason Good
Date:
1829
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The study of medicine. Containing all the author's ... improvements / [John Mason Good]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    618/724 (page 608)
    GEN. X. Spec. I. 6D. acuta pyrectica. Dysenteric fever. When it chiefly oc- curs. A pt to com- bine with any preva-~ lent fever. Illustrated. CL. 11f.] HEMATICA. [oRD. 11. recovering the natural freedom of its current. If the sym- ptoms augment, all the local mischief of ulceration and gangrene follow, which we shall have to describe presently, or the disease will become CHRONIC. In the SECOND VARIETY OF DYSENTERIC FEVER, as it is called by many writers, all the preceding symptoms are highly aggravated, and others are superinduced by the action of the fever itself. The preceding variety may occur at any season of the year, though, for reasons already stated, the disease under every form, is most frequently to be met with in the estival and autumnal months: it is very rarely, however, that the pyrectic variety is to be found in any other than these two seasons; nor even in these, unless there be some endemic or epidemic fever prevailing, with which dysentery can combine. Of its readiness to do this, and even to convert almost all the other diseases of the season into its own form, so forcibly pointed out by Sydenham, the late ravages in Ire- land have furnished us with the most undeniable proofs. “ The bilious fever of the autumn,” says Dr. Cheyne, “‘ con- tinued till near the termination of winter, consequently it ex- isted as long as the dysentery was prevalent in the hospitals and the House of Industry, or the symptoms were often ex- changed for those of dysentery, the irritation from the mucous membrane of the stomach and small intestines probably extending to the large*.” And again, “ dysentery was sometimes converted into fever, while, vice versa, fever was converted into dysentery: in short, these forms of disease were convertible the one into the other; so that the opinion of Sydenham, that dysentery is a febris introversa or turned in upon the intestines, received support from our observations. And it is not unreasonable to suppose, that as these patients in my wards, in common with most of the poor in the city, had been exposed to the contagion of fever; this CONTAGION, according to the condition of the system at the time of its application, or some other modify- ing circumstance, may have produced at one time fever, at another, dysentery +.” * Dublin Hospital Reports, vol. iii. p. 17. + Id. p. 19.