Memoir of the Life and Medical Opinions of John Armstrong Volume 1; To Which Is Added an Inquiry Into the Facts Connected with Those Forms of Fever Attributed to Malaria or Marsh Effluvium (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1834 Excerpt: ... disease for the first two days; it then assumed a remittent form, and if not arrested, went on to a fatal termination; on the third day usually, sometimes later, delirium and indistinct articulation supervened, the deglutition became somewhat difficult, the pupils dilated, the hands and fore arms fixed by the convulsive tension of the muscles, the men always wishing to get out of bed. There was great want of sleep, the torpidity of the bowels continued, the evacuations dark, foetid and watery, and in the advanced state of the disease they had a substance floating in them like chopped tobacco leaves, or like the white of eggs boiled hard and broken down. Lumbrici were, in many instances, ejected peranum and by vomiting; the urine was dark and turbid, as if clotted blood was dissolved in it; the pulse feeble; some had epistaxis, others blotches, which receded and reappeared on the surface, as if stung by nettles, and many became suddenly yellow. As the disease proceeded there was an evening exacerbation with intolerable heat of skin, and morning remissions with a profuse and useless sweat, the skin remaining hot; at length the exacerbation was succeeded by collapse, with hurried and anxious respiration, a thready intermittent pulse, pieking of the bedclothes, involuntary colliquative stools, and cold clammy sweat. In some cases clotted or fluid blood was passed from the bowels immediately before death. In a few cases the high action appeared in the morning, and remission in the evening, which was a dangerous irregularity; there was an extraordinary desire for food and fluids." Though this report is not methodical, it is enough to show that the fever was very different from the Continued fever at Malta. It has some resemblance to the Lake fever of Americ...