Report on cases of fever occurring in the parish of Great Horwood, in the County of Buckingham / by Henry W. Acland.

  • Acland, Henry W. (Henry Wentworth), 1815-1900.
Date:
[1858]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report on cases of fever occurring in the parish of Great Horwood, in the County of Buckingham / by Henry W. Acland. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Leeds Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Leeds Library.

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    ries, &c. But Fevers, specially so called, as distinguished from “ being feverish,” imply some causes, or cause, in- dependent of the person affected. These causes are now known to be for the most part Destitution, Mental depression, Putrescent organic re- mains, Over-crowding, Deficient ventilation, Contagion. These appear to act with the more intensity, in pro- portion as they combine together. Of Fever there are probably three varieties. Their mortality, causes, and communicability by contagion vary. There is also great difference in different indi- viduals in their susceptibility to the infection, and in the duration of the disease; in the way in which it lays hold of, and in the mode by which it destroys their vital powers; and so also, and necessarily, a great difference in the way in which persons are to be treated. This difference is caused, not only by the nature of the Fever itself, and, probably, by general laws regulating the course of all disease, from generation to generation, but by the constitution of the person, by his past mode of life, by his present habits of mind and of body, and by the circumstances of his dwelling. Death may be caused rapidly by, as it were, the primary shock to the whole constitution; or more slowly, by either, gradual “ wear and tear” or chemical destruction, which cannot be resisted, or, by the establishment of particular in- juries in some vital organ, or organs. 8. Recovery may be brought about at various periods from the moment when the poison is received, either by the spontaneous cessation of the chemical changes ; or by supplying by art the great waste of the body ; by main- taining the general powers of the circulation and ot the nervous system; by aiding the repair of injury to organs; by hindering and preventing that injury; and