The pathology and treatment of yellow fever : with some remarks upon the nature of its cause and its prevention / by H.D. Schmidt.

  • Schmidt, H. D. (Henry D.), 1823-1888.
Date:
1881
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The pathology and treatment of yellow fever : with some remarks upon the nature of its cause and its prevention / by H.D. Schmidt. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    INTRODUCTION. There are few infectious diseases which have engaged the interest of medical men as much as yellow fever. In consequence, the literature of this disease, beginning in the seventeenth cen- tury and extending to our time, has assumed very considerable dimensions.* But extensive as this literature appears, it has, in reality, but little advanced our knowledge of the true pathology of this disease, for the reason that the authors, especially the older ones, had contented themselves with basing their patho- logical theories chiefly upon the clinical phenomena observed at the bedside, or, at the utmost, upon the macroscopical examinations accompanying the autopsies, which, as may be presumed, were not always made in the systematic style and manner essential to an accurate scientific investigation. Accordingly, the authors prin- cipally confined their writings to a description of the history of the disease, or to the observations which they made at the bed- side, and from which they formed their various speculative theories as to its probable cause. From these remarks, however, it musk not be inferred that our predecessors were inferior students or observers, for their clinical observations have in most points been corroborated by our own ; their deficiency of observation was only due to want of acquaint- ance with those important pathological facts, elicited chiefly by the aid of the microscope in more recent times ; for, twenty-five years have hardly elapsed since this instrument was first used to demonstrate the structural changes taking place in various organs <luring the course of yellow fever. In judging, therefore, of the merits of our predecessors, the rapid progress made in our own time in human physiology and pathology, upsetting many of the * The works and monogrnplis treating upon yellow fever, and composing tho Bilillograpliy of Dr. La Roche's great work on this diseaae, alone, amount to iittie huitdved and Dei'etily-Jive.