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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Licence: Public Domain Mark

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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    yeai-s ago, iincl I myself have heard it applied by old practitioners to un- mishihable cases of typhoid fever within the last five years. The misuse of terms in medicine is, however, a common consequence of imperfect Icnowledge, and we must not allow ourselves to be led astray by it. I cannot dwell longer now upon this interesting epidemic. Let me turn nest to another illustration, in which the malarial element was still more potent, and with regard to which I need only present a few salient points, because it is so often cited in connection with the diseases of armies that most of the leading facts must be well known to you all. I refer to the Walcheren fever, which decimated an English army in the yeai- 1809. The previous experience of English armies in the Nethex’lands had shown the mahgnant character of the malarial influences which prevail in that region. It had been described in striking language in the excel- lent work of Sir John Pringle.* He had recorded that all the flat region between the rivers Lys and Scheldt and the sea, was marshy and nn- healthful, the home of periodical fevers; that a great part of Holland, including Dutch Brabant, was subject to the same disorders, and that the air was worst of all in Zealand. He has left gi’aphic descriptions of the fevers which prevailed among the English troops operating in these low countries between 1742 and 1748. He had observed especially that when the troops were encamped near stagnant waters the “ marsh fevers are not only apt to begin with little remission, but, after intermitting for some days, to change into continued fevers of a dangerous natm’e.”t Especially was this the case duiing the summer and autumn of 1748, when the troops were encamped near the inundations of Dutch Brabant. An epidemic of such fevers occurred among them. Pringle writes: “At the height of the epidemic it appeared that both intermittents and remittents, by extending or doubling their paroxysms, frequently changed into a continued and dangerous form, and that most of those we lost died m this way. These men, as we remarked, had a corrupted smell for a day or two before their death, and soon after, their bodies putrefied. Some had petechial spots, though the place where they lay was neither crowded with sick nor too close; and to these spots were added some other symptoms, the same with those of the hospital fevers.” j; The expedition of 1809 renewed the experiences of Pringle on a more formidable scale. The English army, of between 42,000 and 43,000 men, was quite healthy when it set sail from the Downs, July 28th, but * Sir JOJIN Pki.nolk. Ois. on the Diseases o/the Army. 7th lidil., I^ondon, 1774, p. i, et seg. 173, Op. cit., p. ;8i.