Remarks on the changes which are supposed to have taken place in the type of continued fever / by Charles Murchison.

  • Murchison, Charles, 1830-1879.
Date:
[1858]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Remarks on the changes which are supposed to have taken place in the type of continued fever / by Charles Murchison. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    time in this fever, abandoned to the use of whey and God’s good providence, who all recovered. The crisis, however, was very im¬ perfect, for they were subject to relapses, even sometimes to the third time; nor did their urine come to a complete separation. Divers of them, as their fever declined, had a paroxysm in the even¬ ing, and in some there succeeded pains in the limbs.”1 Several epidemics of relapsing fever have occurred subsequently to that of 1817-20; and although venesection has constituted little or no part of the treatment, the mortality has not exceeded, or has been considerably less, than that observed during the period just alluded to. Thus, in 1843, relapsing fever was again epidemic in Edin¬ burgh, and was made the subject of a monograph by Dr Rose Cor- mack,2 and of a lengthened series of papers in the Medical Gazette by Dr Warded.3 Among the cases observed by Dr Warded, the mortality was only 1 in 20; and among Dr Cormack’s cases it was 1 in 16J. Again, out of 7804 cases of relapsing fever (classified as distinct from typhus), which were admitted into the Glasgow Royal Infirmary between the years 1843 and 1853 inclusive, only 405 or 5*2 per cent, died;4 and of 203 cases admitted into the Edinburgh Infirmary in the year 1848-49, only 8 cases, or 3*94 per cent, died.5 The following table gives the mortality from ad the cases of relaps¬ ing fever admitted into the London Fever Hospital, during the last ten years :— TABLE I. Cases of Relapsing Fever admitted into the London Fever Hospital. Years. No. of Cases. Deaths. 1848 13 1 1849 29 0 1850 32 2 1851 256 7 1852 88 1 1853 16 0 1854 5 0 1855 1 0 1856 0 0 1857 1? 0 Total, 441 11 1 A Chronological History of the Weather and Seasons, and of the Prevailing Diseases in Dublin. By John Rutty, M.D. Lond. 1770. Pp. 75 and 76. 2 Natural History, Pathology, and Treatment of the Epidemic Fever at present Prevailing in Edinburgh and other Towns. By John Rose Cormack, M.D. Edinburgh, 1843. 3 London Medical Gazette. Vols. xxxvii. to xl. 4 Glasgow Medical Journal. Vol. ii., p. 161. 5 Statistical Tables, Royal Infirmary. Ninth Series, p. 15.