Fever nursing : designed for the use of professional and other nurses, and especially as a text-book for nurses in training / by J.C. Wilson.

Date:
1888
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Fever nursing : designed for the use of professional and other nurses, and especially as a text-book for nurses in training / by J.C. Wilson. 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.

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    fever indicates a liability to develop it under unfavor- able circumstances again, or even repeatedly. Synonymes.—Acute Articular Rheumatism; Inflam- matory Rheumatism. History.—Rheumatic fever is prevalent in temperate countries, and rare alike in cold and in tropical latitudes. It is endemic in Europe and the United States, but is by no means uniform in its distribution and frequency. Some districts are almost free from it, while its prevalence where it is common varies from a few scattered cases at one season to such frequency at another as almost suggests an epidemic. Rheumatic fever is common after the sixth year of life; most frequent between fifteen and forty; rare after that period. Causation.—Exposure to cold, and especially to damp cold. But why such exposure should cause rheumatism in certain persons while others escape or suffer from other diseases, as pneumonia or bronchitis, is not under- stood. Of the numerous theories advanced to account for the causation of rheumatism, none has yet found general acceptance. It is of interest to note that in Germany, at the present time, the view that rheumatic fever is due to a specific infection from without is rapidly gaining ground. Course and Symptoms.—The chief symptom of rheu- matic fever is an acute inflammation of the joints, of which several, and commonly the larger, are simultane- ously or successively affected. It is not common for many of the joints to become inflamed at the same time. In fact, it is characteristic of tliis disease that the in- flammation, which is attended by the symptoms of