Volume 1

Observations on the healthy and diseased properties of the blood / by William Stevens.

  • William Stevens
Date:
1832
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Observations on the healthy and diseased properties of the blood / by William Stevens. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    their appearance in the same neighbourhood ; and after a short period, it began to creep in from this spot towards the centre of the city; and before the end of October, upwards of four thousand individuals fell victims to the disease. Rush has justly observed, that ‘ in extensive epidemics no remedies can be generally useful, except those that are cheap, and capable of being used with but little attend- ance ;’ and though the mortality from the African typhus has been very great whenever this disease has occurred in the United States, yet I will venture to predict, that this fever will be less fatal, if it ever appears again in that country, if the physicians will only have the good sense not to do any harm with calomel, opium, antimony, or acids, but treat it with bleeding and Saratoga water in the first stage, and in the last with carbonate of soda and the other active alkaline salts, which do not act too much on the in- testinal canal. Note for page 289.—About the year 1740, an epidemic fever of the typhoid kind was very prevalent and very fatal at Berlin. One physician in that city became so famous for the success of his practice, that the Government was induced to purchase the prescription, which he had kept a secret. It turned out to be muriate of potass—then, as now, fallen into disuse, though at one time highly cele- brated, under the title of the Digestive Salt of Sylvius, being accounted capable of promoting a favourable crisis in fevers, when freely administered in the last stage. The above fact was communicated to me in a note which I have received from my friend Dr. Ure. The muriate of potass is certainly more pungent than any other salt, and I intend to give it a trial in cholera. Note for page 471. Upto the present moment there has been in the prison at Cold Bath Fields about twenty-three new cases of cholera, and two additional deaths. The first was a case of relapse :—the patient had been admitted into the Cholera Infirmary on the 25th, with vomiting, purging,
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