Typho-malarial fever : is it a special type of fever? : being remarks introductory to the discussion of the question in the Section of Medicine, International Medical Congress / by J.J. Woodward.

  • Woodward, Joseph Janvier, 1833-1884.
Date:
1876
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Credit: Typho-malarial fever : is it a special type of fever? : being remarks introductory to the discussion of the question in the Section of Medicine, International Medical Congress / by J.J. Woodward. 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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    summer of 1862, to serve ou u Board of Medical Officers, who were directed to revise the form of sick rei)ort in use in the army. I was flesh fiom the Army of the Potomac, which I had accompanied from its camps before Washington, wdiere I had spent the winter with it. I had lain in camp at Yorktown, and followed the army up the Peninsula. I had formed the opinion that the prevailing fevers of the Ai-my of the Potomac were hybrid forms, resulting from the comliined influence of malarial poisoning and of the causes of typhoid fever. I believed that individual cases received their characters in accordance as the one or the other of these influences preponderated in the individual, and that very often the picture was still further complicated by the coexistence of a scorbutic taint. Full of these opinions, I proposed to the Board, as I had previously suggested to the Surgeon General, to designate the complex condition in question by the name typho-malarial fever, and I induced the Board to add this term to the list of diseases printed on the blank form for the monthly sick report. I often regi’et that I did not also urge upon the Board the preparation of a circular letter to accompany the new sick report, explaining why this term had been adopted, and calling for special reports with regard to the cases which it was intended to designate. As it was, the term went upon the sick report without any explanation or a word of comment. But even under these circumstances, 23,346 cases were reported as typho-malarial fever during the following year, showing how widely the opinions I had formed were shared by the medical officers of the ai’my. In September, 1863, I published in Circular, No. 15, of the Surgeon General’s Office,* a short statement with regard to the sickness and mortality of the army during the first year of the war, in which I stated the meaning I designed to attach to the term typho-malarial fever, and in November of the same year completed the publication of my Outlines of the Chief Camp Diseases of the United States Aianies,! in which I presented my views at some length. I also gave a short account of the subject in Cmcular No. 6, Surgeon General’s Office, 1865.j; And now, after a careful study of all the pathological and documentai-y materiiil * Circular No. IJ, Surg'eon Generats Office, Washington, D. C., September 8, 1863. Sichness and Mortality of the Army during the First Year of the War. The language used in this preliminarj' report was as follows : “ Aloreover, while a certain amount of uncomplicated enteric and remittent fever cer- tainly did occur, especially at the commencement of the war, the vast majority of the camp fevers of the army were of a mixed character, e.xhibiting undoubted enteric phenomena, variously combined with the periodicity and other peculiarities of malarial disease, and still further modified by the tendency to inci- pient scurvy, which is the ordinary concomitant of camp diet. To indicate this mixed nature, the term typho-m.alarial fever, which I had the honor to suggest to the Department in June, 186a, appears appro- priate, and, at the present time, is coming into very general use.” tJ. J. WooDWAKD. Outlines 0/the Chief Camp diseases of the United States Armies, as observed during the present war. Philadelphia: J. 15. Lippincott & Co., 1863. 8vo. pp. 364. Circular No. b. Surgeon General’s Office, Washington, November i, 1865, p. 109 ct sctj