A treatise on fever, or, Selections from a course of lectures on fever : being part of a course of theory and practice of medicine / delivered by Robert D. Lyons.

  • Lyons, Robert Spencer Dyer, 1826-1886.
Date:
1861
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A treatise on fever, or, Selections from a course of lectures on fever : being part of a course of theory and practice of medicine / delivered by Robert D. Lyons. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    Ol’T LINKS OF FKVK1L ami habitual t\xprt*sion— inflammatory fevers; in the use of which we recognise and acknowledge the difficulty of assigning to each of these great morbid states its distinct part. Hut, while the two states often unquestionably present so much of analogy, and while we admit tliat they may often co-exist simul- kiueously and concurrently ; you must impress it ujxm your minds as one of the cardinal ]>ointsof your com- pass, and one of tin* prime canons of your art as practical physicians that fkvkk ik not inflammation. At a further stage of our inquiry’, we shall endeavour to draw such lines of demarcation for yourguidance in this respect, as may be practicable in the present state of our knowledge. We now proceed to address ourselves more par- ticularly to the question, what fever is. Of the various phenomena presented by fevers, that of an elevation of the temperature of the body, in whole or in part, is the most constant and remarkable, and has likewise attracted most inquiry. With Galen, as we have before stated, the color pro*ter naturam con- stituted the essential phenomenon; many subsequent observers have, however, refused to recognise it as either constant or essential. And this is not to be wondered at, for a very striking and obvious diminu- tion of temperature, in several parts of the body, not only attends the outset of fevers, when the patient’s own sensations, and the impression upon our senses fully concur, as to the actual coldness of various parts, but is often present at a late period of the disease. We now refer to the phenomena of intercurrent rigors, which are often known to occur pending the course of febrile diseases, and sometimes even at their very height; algid states exemplify the same.