The Medical Examiner (Volume 4); A Monthly Record of Medical Science (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: THE MEDICAL EXAMINEE, RECORD OF MEDICAL SCIENCE, NE W SERIES. ?No.XXXVI 1 1.? FEBRUARY, 1848. ORIGINAL COMMUNICATIONS. Typhoid Fever, as it prevailed in Germantown, Tennessee, during the fall of 1847. By R. L. Scruggs, M. D. Communicated in a letter to Mr. J. L. Adkins, Student of Medicine in Jefferson Medical College. This disease made its appearance in our vicinity in the latter part of August last. The first case that I was called to see, was the wife of a neighbouring physician; and it is probable that here I should have failed to recognize the disease, but from the fact that two years ago I assisted in the treatment of two similar cases at the same plantation. This circumstance, with the violence of the symptoms present, caused me to make a more careful examination than probably I should otherwise have done, which, fortunately for me, resulted in a correct diagnosis. For, although there is some difficulty in diagnosticating between this disease at its commencement, and bilious remitting fever, yet, when the attention is called to it, the difference appears to me to be sufficiently manifest; the pulse is peculiar, and, I think, pathognomonic of the disease. Up to this time, I have treated and assisted in the treatment oi twenty-two cases: of these, seven occurred at one plantation, eight at another, three at another, and four other places furnished one case each. Out of these, only one case terminated fatally, Tol. . 8which result was owing, I think, to the patient's refusing obstinately to submit to treatment. This patient died on the thirty-first day of her confinement. She miscarried during this time; I think about the fifteenth day of her illness. She ate ice, and drank freely of iced water from a week after she was taken sick until within...