Erasmus Darwin

“ An example of unmixed sensitive fever may generally be taken from the pulmonary consumption; in this disease patients are seen to walk about with ease, and to do all the common offices of life for weeks, and even months, with a pulse of 120 strokes in a minute; while in other fevers, whether irritated or inirritated, with a pulse of this frequency, the patient generally lies upon the bed, and exerts no muscular efforts without difficulty. ”

“ Fever from inclosed matter is generally of the irritated sensitive kind, and continues for many weeks, and even months, after the abscess is formed; but is distinguished from the fever from aerated matter in open ulcers, because there are seldom any night-sweats, or colliquative diarrhœa in this, as in the latter. The pulse is also harder, and requires occasional venesection, and cathartics, to abate the inflammatory fever; which is liable to increase again every three or four days, till at length, unless the matter has an exit, it destroys the patient. ”

“ Another method of inducing sickness, and pulmonary absorption in consequence, is by sailing on the sea; by which many consumptive patients have been said to have received their cure; which has been erroneously ascribed to sea-air, instead of sea-sickness; whence many have been sent to breathe the sea-air on the coasts, who might have done better in higher situations, where the air probably contains less oxygen gas, which is the heaviest part of it. ”

“ The pulse of all very weak patients increases in frequency when they sit up; because the expenditure of sensorial power necessary to preserve an erect posture deducts so much from their general strength; and hence the pulse becomes weaker, and in consequence quicker. See Sect. XII. 1. 4.
In this fever time must be allowed for the absorption of the matter. Very large and repeated quantities of the bark, by preventing sufficient food from being taken, as bread, and wine, and water, I have thought has much injured the patient ”

“ Watt, which has a double advantage in these cases, of diluting the oxygen of the atmospheric air, and inducing sickness, which increases pulmonary absorption, as mentioned below. An atmosphere diluted with fixed air (carbonic acid) might be readily procured by setting tubs of new wort, or fermenting beer, in the parlour and lodging-room of the patient. For it is not acids floating in the air, but the oxygen or acidifying principle, which injures or enlarges pulmonary ulcers by combining with the purulent matter. ”

“ The common means of promoting absorption in ulcers, and of thickening the matter in consequence, by taking the bark and opium internally, or by metallic salts, as of mercury, steel, zinc, and copper, in small quantities, have been repeatedly used in pulmonary consumption ”

“ If in neither a precipitation occurs, it is a certain test, that the material is entirely mucus. If the material cannot be made to dissolve in alkaline lixivium by time and trituration, we have also reason to believe that it is pus." Experiments on Pus and Mucus. Cadell. London. 7. Phthisis pulmonalis. In pulmonary consumption the fever is generally supposed to be the consequence of the stimulus of absorbed matter circulating in the blood-vessels, and not simply of its stimulus on their extremities in the surface of the ulcers ”

“ An abscess in the lungs is sometimes produced after peripneumony, the cough and shortness of breath continue in less degree, with difficulty in lying on the well side, and with sensitive irritated fever, as explained in the preceding article. ”

“ The expectation of this issue was indeed for some time so fixed that it ceased to produce much agitation; in conformity to that general law of our nature, by which almost all men submit with composure to a fate that is foreseen, and that appears inevitable. ”

“ The great and sudden absorption of fluid from the lungs in the anasarca pulmonum by the sickness induced by the exhibition of digitalis, astonishes those who have not before attended to it, by emptying the swelled limbs, and removing the difficulty of breathing in a few hours. ”

“ During the journey he did not find the improvement he expected, but the nightly perspirations began to diminish; and the extraordinary fatigue he experienced proceeded evidently from his travelling in a post-chaise, where he could not indulge in a recumbent position. The weather at Bristol had been hot, and the earth arid and dusty. At Matlock, during the month of June 1784, there was almost a perpetual drizzle, the soil was wet, and the air moist and cold. Here, however, the patient's cough began to abate, and at intervals he found an opportunity of riding more or less on horseback. ”

“ When the matter from an abscess in the lungs finds its way into the cavity of the chest, it is called an empyema. A servant man, after a violent peripneumony, was seized with symptoms of empyema, and it was determined, after some time, to perform the operation ”

“ Here the absorbed matter is supposed to produce the fever, and the diarrhœa, sweats, or copious muddy urine, to be simply the consequence of increased secretion, and not to consist of the purulent matter, which was supposed to be absorbed from the ulcer. See Sudor calidus, Class I. 1. 2. 3.
The action of the air on ulcers, as we have already shewn, increases the acrimony of the purulent matter, and even converts it into a weaker kind of contagious matter; that is, to a material inducing fever. This was ascribed to the union of the azotic part of the atmosphere with the effused pus in Sect. ”

“ Pus and mucus are both soluble in the vitriolic acid, though in very different proportions, pus being much the less soluble. 2. The addition of water to either of these compounds decomposes it; the mucus thus separated, either swims on the mixture, or forms large flocci in it; whereas the pus falls to the bottom, and forms on agitation a uniform turbid mixture. 3. ”

“ By occasionally adding more and more chalk, carbonic acid gas might be carried through a tin pipe from the arm of the iron pot to any part of the room near the patient, or from an adjoining room. In the same manner a diffusion of solution of flowers of zinc might be produced and breathed by the patient, and would be likely much to contribute to the healing of pulmonary ulcers ”

“ Whence these naked ulcers are perpetually exposed to the action of the air on their surfaces, converting their mild purulent matter into a contagious ichor; which not only prevents them from healing, but by its action on their circumferences, like the matter of itch or tinea, contributes to spread them wider. ”

“ The occasional increase of fever, with hard pulse and sizy blood, in these patients, is probably owing to the inflammation of the walls of the vomica; as it is attended with difficulty of breathing, and requires venesection. Mr. B——, a child about seven years old, lived about five weeks in this situation, with a pulse from 150 to 170 in a minute, without sweats, or diarrhœa, or sediment in his water, except mucus occasionally ”