An essay on the prevailing, or yellow-fever, of 1817 : together with preliminary observations, and an enquiry into the causes which produced it; also, a brief view of the effect of certain poisons on the animal economy, compared with those of the specific gaseous poison of the yellow-fever / By J.L.E.W. Shecut.

  • Shecut, John L. E. W. (John Linnaeus Edward Whitridge), 1770-1836.
Date:
1817
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An essay on the prevailing, or yellow-fever, of 1817 : together with preliminary observations, and an enquiry into the causes which produced it; also, a brief view of the effect of certain poisons on the animal economy, compared with those of the specific gaseous poison of the yellow-fever / By J.L.E.W. Shecut. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    ‘ CHAPTER III. Of the Characteristic Symptoms and Curative Indications of the 'Fever, Proposition 3d.-—What are the characteristic marks which especially distinguishes the Yellow Fever from the common bilious remittent ? Answer.—The most obvious are, those sudden changes that are peculiar to this fever, in greater de¬ gree than any other modification of disease with which we are acquainted. Assuming, in the first in¬ stance, the type of a high sthenic, it rapidly changes to the asthenic, with great prostration of strength ; an obstinate irritability of the stomach and torpor of tiie bowels, a black vomit, and a sudden tendency to gangrene and mortification. It is true, that these symptoms, as such, are not alone peculiar 1o this state of fever, since there are others which degenerate from sthenic to asthenic, but wrhose changes are not so rapid, as is the case with the bili¬ ous remittent. The irritability of the stomach in other diseases is not so obstinate ; and the melcena or black vomit of Yellow Fever is considered as specifi¬ cally different from the morbus niger of the ancients, and the atrabilis ofBoERHAAVE and VanSwieten, and is the effect of a peculiar morbid action of the stomach, produced by the stimulus of the miasmata ox gaseous poison acting upon the liver, stomach, bowels, &c.— But, as 1 have devoted an entire chapter to this sub¬ ject, in my Elements of Medicine, shortly to be pub¬ lished, 1 forbear to say more in this place. SECTION l. Of the Characteristic Marks and Symptoms of Yelloui Fever, In addition to the observations immediately pre¬ ceding, it appears 1st, That the specific character of the disease consists in its being produced by a gaseous poison, blended with atmospherical air, and producing in the system a morbid secretion of the