Statements relative to the present prevalence of epidemic fever among the poorer classes of Glasgow : together with some suggestions, both for affording more adequate assistance to the sick, and for checking the farther progress of the contagion in a letter, addressed to the Honourable, the Lord Provost of Glasgow / by Richard Millar.

  • Millar, Richard.
Date:
1818
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Statements relative to the present prevalence of epidemic fever among the poorer classes of Glasgow : together with some suggestions, both for affording more adequate assistance to the sick, and for checking the farther progress of the contagion in a letter, addressed to the Honourable, the Lord Provost of Glasgow / by Richard Millar. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    What are so called, are small cushions, in shape not unlike the old flat blue bonnet still worn in several parts of Scotland, only stuffed round the edges, and hollow in the middle. The use of them is, to guard against pressure of particular parts, when such happen to be enflamed, or ulcer¬ ated. In all disorders of great debility, like our Typhus, the sick not unfrequently, from this m cause, are unable to turn themselves in bed, and, accordingly, apt to lie too long in the same pos¬ ture. The consequence is, that certain circum¬ scribed spots of the surface thus exposed to long continued compression, contract inflammation \ and in the weak state of the system, this inflam¬ mation, if not counteracted, is extremely liable to run into a state of Gangrene. The skin, and parts below, of course, slough out, and an ugly, ill- conditioned ulcer, is formed. These ulcers give the utmost uneasiness, detain the patient for weeks in bed, after other symptoms are gone, and occasionally prove fatal. They are met with wherever partial pressure is applied, and of course in all those “points dy appui” to which the body resorts, while in a recumbent posture: as on the haunches, hips, lower portion of back, shoulders, heels, hind-head, &c. I have had in¬ stances of them, during the present Epidemic, in