Medical reports, on the effects of water, cold and warm, as a remedy in fever, and febrile diseases; whether applied to the surface of the body, or used as a drink: with observations on the nature of fever; and on the effects of opium, alcohol, and inanition / by James Currie.

Date:
1797
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Medical reports, on the effects of water, cold and warm, as a remedy in fever, and febrile diseases; whether applied to the surface of the body, or used as a drink: with observations on the nature of fever; and on the effects of opium, alcohol, and inanition / by James Currie. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

    170/328 (page 146)
    ot the difeafe is a fenfe of debility or languor, very diftindtly marked on the countenance, followed by palenefs, cold and tremor ; the functions of the mind are weakened in a correfpondent degree with thofe of the body, and all the actions of the fyftem are enfeebled. This general debility is peculiar in its kind. The fymptoms refemble thofe produced by inhaling certain gafes whofe properties are known ; and this circumftance ferves to ftrengthen thofe view's of the nature of contagion which the new chemiftry has fuggefted. They feem alfo to have a refemblance, though a more remote one, to the effedts of certain poifons operating on the ftomach, or introduced into the circulation by the abforbents. The remote caufe of fever may be con- fidered as itfelf a poifon adting diredtly on the fen- forium commune. Where this poifon is peculi- arly concentrated and malignant, or where the f) ftem is much debilitated, the powers of life are lometimes opprefTed and extinguifhed in the firft flage human effluvia, and to marfh miafmata, Dr. Cullen proba- bly Amplified too far. Cold, under certain circumftances, feems to produce fever, and the conilitution feems at times to take on fever from unknown and internal caufes. The con- jecture of Dr. Mitchel of New York, that the gafeous oxyd of nitrogen is the caufe of the dreadful fever of America and the Weft-Indies, is highly ingenious, and deferves great at- tention. »