Observations on the changes of the air, and the concomitant epidemical diseases in the island of Barbadoes : to which is added, A treatise on the putrid bilious fever, commonly called the yellow fever, and such other diseases as are indigenous or endemial in the West India islands, or in the torrid zone / by William Hillary, M.D. with notes by Benjamin Rush, M.D.

  • Hillary, William, -1763.
Date:
1811
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Observations on the changes of the air, and the concomitant epidemical diseases in the island of Barbadoes : to which is added, A treatise on the putrid bilious fever, commonly called the yellow fever, and such other diseases as are indigenous or endemial in the West India islands, or in the torrid zone / by William Hillary, M.D. with notes by Benjamin Rush, M.D. 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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    cr tendency towards the head and breast, as they had then; and we had some few apoplexies and palsies. June was very warm and mostly dry, though we had con- siderable great showers of rain in some days, but the in- termediate days were very warm and dry. The quantity of rain which fell in this month, was equal to 2.44 cubi- cal inches deep. The lowest the thermometer was any morning was at 77, and the highest it ever was in the morning was at 80; the lowest at noon was at 82, and the highest at 86. The lowest the barometer was at 29.8^, the highest was at 29.9. Though this month was very warm, yet it was in gen- eral pretty healthful, for we had few sick, except a few who had some of the above mentioned inflammatory fe- vers ; and these were much less violent, and more easily relieved by moderate bleeding and the above mentioned antiphlogistic method, than in the preceding months. But towards the latter end of the month, some had a diarrhoea febrilis, and a few had a dysentery, but neither of them wTere very bad, nor were they difficult to cure. Some had the dry belly-ache, which now was attended with some degree of inflammation, and with some inflammatory symptoms, which are not usual in that disease, nor did I ever meet with it before or since. This rendered its cure a little more difficult, and less expeditious than the cure of that disease now usually is; for some in this re- quired bleeding and the use of antiphlogistics, to be given with those medicines which are known to relieve, and take off that painful disease at other times; and their blood was more or less sizy in this, though I rarely or never found it so in the true pictonic cholic before now. (16) Several, both strangers and natives, were seized with the putrid bilious fever, in which I found the method of treating it (hereafter mentioned) very successful. See p. 1. part II. (16) The dry belly-ache mentioned in this place, was com- plicated with the bilious colic. This is obvious from its being accompanied with two other intestinal states of fever, and from the remedies it required to cure it.