Medical report of the Fever Department in Steevens' Hospital : containing a brief account of the late epidemic in Dublin, from September 1817, to August 1819 / by John Crampton.

  • Crampton, John, -1840.
Date:
1819
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Medical report of the Fever Department in Steevens' Hospital : containing a brief account of the late epidemic in Dublin, from September 1817, to August 1819 / by John Crampton. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    still have much to learn, I apprehend we are now in the right road. On the subject of the morbid appearances found in those who die of fever, all those who are hos- pital physicians, and who have either practised or superintended dissections, are fully agreed. A few of those who have not seen bodies opened them- selves, but who rely on the opinions of others, founded on the examination of such subjects as are generally brought to the dissecting room, with- out knowing the previous history of the disease, have taken a different view of the question, I witnessed myself most of the examinations which took place at the hospitals of the House of Industry, not only of those who died in the Hard- wicke and Wliitworth hospitals, but those who fell victims to fever in the Richmond Penitentiary, which at that period accommodated about 500 patients. The appearances which I observed in the brain and its membranes were fulness and distention of the vessels, the arteries as well as the veins, the foiiner often appearing as if subjected to an anatomical injection j extravasation of blood was seen in a few instances, sometimes under the arachnoid, and again at the base of the brain; effusion into the ventricles and under the arachnoid was frequently witnessed, as well as into the spinal canal j a thickening and opacity of the arachnoid and of the pia mater was not an unusual occurrence^