Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: A treatise on the continued fevers of Great Britain. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University Libraries/Information Services, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University.
61/814 (page 35)
![* that many of the poor, abandoned through necessity to a low aces- cent diet, and some of them drinking nothing but water, recovered.' In the worst (Typhus) cases, it is stated that bleeding was of no service, and that the pulse was so depressed, as not even to be raised by ' gene- rous cordials and great plenty of sack.' Short says that in Gal way 'blisters and bleedmg had made doubly fine work of it.' O'Connell strongly condemned much bleeding ; and although he bled to ten ounces at the commencement of the complaint, he honestly acknow- ledged that the treatment was of no use. About the same period, although a little later, a very fatal epidemic fever made its appearance in England and Scotland, and there are records of its prevalence in London, Bristol, Worcester, Plymouth, etc. In Bristol and Worcester it was observed in 1740, but in London not until July 1741. In Lou don it is said to have broken out among the poor who had been half starved for two years, and obliged to eat uncommon and unwhole- some things. In all the accounts mention is made of the eruption ; in some cases it is described as like that of measles, in others as like so many small flea-bites, while in a few instances it is said to have been mixed up with petechiae and vibices. Parotid abscesses and buboes are mentioned by Huxham as frequent complications. In an anony- mous pamphlet, published at the time, the treatment recommended consisted in bleeding and purging; but the experience of most ob- servers was opposed to bleeding. Dr. Wall treated his cases with bark and acids ; and, in reference to bleeding, he wrote, ' As to myself, I lay so little stress upon bleedmg, that I have always omitted it, unless some very urgent symptom seemed to require it.' Short tells us that the cases in London ' could not bear bleeding.' ^ In 1750, and again in 1752, Sir John Pringle, Physician-Greneral to His Majesty's Forces, and afterwards President of the Pioyal Society, described Typhus as ' the Hospital- or Jayl-Fever.' As to the eruption he wrote as follows :—' There are certain spots which are the frequent, but not inseparable, attendants upon fever.' They are the true ]3etechice, being sometimes of a brighter or paler red, at other tunes of a lurid colour, and are never raised above the skin. They are small, and commonly distinct, but sometimes so confluent, that at a little distance the skin looks only somewhat ' redder than ordinary, but upon a nearer inspection the mterstices are seen.' ' They sometimes appear as early as the fourth or fifth day,' ' The nearer they approach to a purple, the more ominous they are.' From the account of the post-mortem appearances, however, it is obvious that Pringle included under Hospital-Fever, cases which were not Typhus, and which, in fact, were probably not fever at all. As to treatment, he ordered that the patient should first be removed out of the foul air. Speaking of depletion, he observed:—'Large bleedings have generally proved fatal, by sinking the pulse and bringing on a delirium ;' and again : ' Many have recovered * For an account of this Epidemic, see O'Connell, 1746; Shoet, 1749; Anonym. 1741 ; Eutty, 1770; Huxham, 1752; Baeker and Cheyne, 1821, i.; Stakk, 1865. D 2](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b2121220x_0061.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
