A short account of the origin, symptoms, and most approved method of treating the putrid bilious yellow fever, vulgarly called the black vomit : which appeared in the city of Havanna, with the utmost violence, in the months of June, July, and part of August, 1794 / as practised by Mr. John Holliday, an English surgeon, resident in that city.

  • Holliday, John.
Date:
1796
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A short account of the origin, symptoms, and most approved method of treating the putrid bilious yellow fever, vulgarly called the black vomit : which appeared in the city of Havanna, with the utmost violence, in the months of June, July, and part of August, 1794 / as practised by Mr. John Holliday, an English surgeon, resident in that city. 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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    the fluids in ail who laboured under the complaint, continually demonftrated the greateft tendency to a ftate of diffolution and putrefaction ; and if thofe of the Faculty who have written fo voluminouily on the diforder, would have obferyed with more attention, that high degree of tendency of the fluids to diffolu- tion and putrefaction, they would not have infilled on the ufe of fuch extenfive bleeding, which, from expe- rience, we have every reafon to believe, has been the caufe of fo great a mortality. I fliall now defcribe, in the moll ccncife manner poffible, that particular method of cure which I ufed with the greateft fuccefs on upwards of one hundred and fifty patients labouring under this complaint, with- out the lofs of one. On the 6th day of June, I was called by the Captain of the Lord Stanley, to the affift- ance of the fick of his crew, whom I thought proper mould be fent on more, as much for the benefit of at- tendance, air, &c. as to remove them from where they had caught the firft infection. Imagining then- complaint to have been of the intermittent or bilious fever common to the place, of little importance, and lefs malignity, according to the cuftom of fevers of that kind, (and ignorant of the fatal confequences which were about to enfue) I made ufe of emetics, antimonials, &c. until the refult of experience con. vinced me of my error. Moved with companion, and always in hopes of future fuccefs, I thought, with ma- ny others, that by the fulnefs of the pulfe, together with other inflammatory fymptoms which the diforder manifefted, the patient could probably be relieved by bleeding, which method I immediately put in practice, ufing it from the leffer to the greateft degree, on a great