Malaria / by William H. Welch and William S. Thayer.

  • Welch, William Henry, 1850-1934.
Date:
[1897]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Malaria / by William H. Welch and William S. Thayer. 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.

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    Celsiis and Galen divide intermittent fevers into quotidian, tertian, quartan, semi-tertian, and irregular. They recognized intermittent fevers with long intervals. The nature of their semi-tertian fever (hemitritseus) has given rise to much discussion. Certain forms of intermittent fever were believed by Galen to have their seat in the spleen, others in the liver. The influence of marsh effluvia and of seasons of the year in the causation of certain of these fevers was recog- nized. Various symptoms were discriminated as to their prognostic significance, often with much acuteness of observation. A passage in Celsus clearly alludes to the type of malarial fever now called sestivo- autumnal fever. The Arabian physician Rhazes described the so-called subintrant malarial fevers. No important advance beyond the knowledge of Celsus and of Galen concerning malarial fevers was made until toward the end of the sixteenth century, when Mercatus in his work on malignant fevers described various forms of pernicious paroxysms in association with intermittent fever, particularly with the tertian type. The introduction of cinchona bark from Peru into Europe by the Countess del Chinchon and her body-physician, Juan del Vego, in 1640, gave great impetus to the study of malarial fevers, and, indeed, in its revolutionizing influence upon medical doctrines this event marks an epoch in the history of medicine. In the latter half of the seventeenth and the beginning of the eigh- teenth century there appeared a voluminous literature regarding mala- rial fevers. The most notable of the works upon this subject of this period are those of Sydenham, Richard Morton, Torti, Ramazzini, and Lancisi. These works remain to this day the great classics upon malaria. They contain the fundamental clinical and therapeutical facts and many etiological data relating to this disease. Morton and Lancisi demon- strated clearly the relation of malaria to marsh miasm. Sydenham pointed out the differences between vernal and autumnal intermittent fevers. Especially complete and keen in analysis is the nosography of Torti,^ whose classification of the malarial fevers, particularly of the pernicious and mixed forms, has been followed by most subsequent authors. The diagnostic as well as the therapeutic value of the prepara- tions of Peruvian bark was recognized, and assisted materially in the discrimination of the malarial fevers from the other so-called essential fevers. It is interesting to note the relative accuracy of diagnosis and of description of the group of malarial fevers from the latter half of the seventeenth century onward, in contrast to the confusion which existed regarding the other essential fevers until the discrimination of the latter by the pathological-anatomical studies of the present century. The military and colonial enterprises of England in the eighteenth century served to extend the knowledge of the geographical distribution of malaria, particularly in tropical climates, the works of Pringle and of Lind containing especially noteworthy observations on this point. But the great mass of the very extensive literature on the epidemi- ography of malarial diseases which has been so industriously collected and ably analyzed by Hirsch^ belongs to the present century. ' Torti: Therapeutice specialis adfebres quasdam perniciosas, etc., Mutinse, 1712. ^ Hirsch: Sandbuch der historisch-geographisehen Pathologic, Stuttgart, 1881.