An inaugural essay on the rheumatic state of fever : submitted to the examination of the Revd. John Andrews ..., the Trustees, and medical professors, of the University of Pennsylvania, on the 3d of June, 1805, for the degree of Doctor of Medicine / by George Evans, of Charleston.

  • Evans, George.
Date:
1805
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An inaugural essay on the rheumatic state of fever : submitted to the examination of the Revd. John Andrews ..., the Trustees, and medical professors, of the University of Pennsylvania, on the 3d of June, 1805, for the degree of Doctor of Medicine / by George Evans, of Charleston. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    come under this head. The debility induced is either general or partial, and is divided into two kinds; the first from an excess, and the second from a deficiency of action. That produced by the latter cause, is happily termed by Dr. Rush, the the debility from abstraction, and is the result of the operation of,— i st, Cold on the body. The sedative effect of cold is universally acknowledged by physici- ans. It abstracts from the system those agents which keep up in it a natural and healthy action. Hence the slothful dispositions, languid habits, and uncommonly slow pulses generally observed among the inhabitants of cold climates. The pulse of a Greenlander beats only from forty to forty-five strokes in a minute; whereas the pulse of an inhabitant of a more southern latitude beats from seventy to eighty. From the sedative opera- tion of cold we can readily account for the paleness, and those bumps commonly observed upon the skins of persons exposed thereto, from the cessa- tion or diminution of the action of the capillaries; this likewise explains to us the sudden stoppage of hemorrhages from the same cause. The opera- tion of cold on the system is greater when com- bined with moisture, as has been proved by the unfortunate experience of hundreds of persons li-