Febrer

“ The sea filled the darkness with a gentle moan whose undulations broke on all the projections and windings of the coast.
Suddenly, Febrer, who sat silently listening with a quiet resembling that of timid children who are afraid to turn over in bed in order not to augment the mystery which surrounds them, stirred in his chair. Something extraordinary rent the air, dominating with its stridor the confused sounds of night. It was a cry, a howl, a whinny, one of those hostile, mocking voices with which vengeful youths call one another in the shadows. ”

“ Summer has received its first mortal wound. But its death is more fatal than its life. The noontide heat is fierce and drinks up the moisture of the rain and the fetid dust with it. The fever-wraith rises in the damp, cool night, far out in the campagna, and steals up to the walls of the city, and over them and under them and into the houses. ”

“ On 20th February a rising wind drove before it snow, fine powdered and dry as March dust, and with the waxing gale, and cold "intense to a degree never before remembered," the drift quickly became a swirling blizzard which no living thing could face. ”

“ He hobbled to the entrance, and brought a cupful of snow, and melted it over the fire. She drank the water greedily, and begged for more. But he told her gently that she must wait a little while. Then he sat thinking. What should be done with fever? It would probably be pneumonia, or something as fatal. And it would take her as the north wind takes the drooping petals of a rose. ”

“ If you stay much longer the fever will get in your blood, in your bones, it will be like fire inside you, and your limbs will feel to you no better than the dry empty canes in autumn. The fever has never touched me, but I have seen it often ”

“ The speech, or more probably our bad manners, made some impression on our guide, for he declined, although offered double pay, to go any further.
A great deal of fever comes in with March and April; in March, if considerable intervals take place between the rainy days, and in April always, for then large surfaces of mud and decaying vegetation are exposed to the hot sun. In general an attack does not continue long, but it pulls one down quickly; though when the fever is checked the strength is as quickly restored. ”

“ As mine must feel until the day
October's frost shall come our way.
I wish the royal piece of cheese
Might be forever doomed to sneeze.
Death is too good for such a king,
Hay fever would be just the thing. ”

“ The Fever Fallacy.—Fever-and-ague, being eminently a summer disease, could not very well be ascribed to cold air; but the antinaturalists, still resolved to find an extraneous cause, have selected as their scapegoat the only kind of natural food and drink most Christians ever touch in summer-time—fruits and cold water. The police of fever-stricken towns prohibit the sale of fresh fruit; fever-patients are kept in sweat-boxes, asking in vain for water and fresh air ”

“ Both the cold and the hot fits, about the exposition of which such a theory is alone concerned, are themselves accidents, since in the most formidable and dangerous forms of fever, the supposed relation between these phenomena is not only constantly disturbed, but often the phenomena themselves do not occur, it being one of the very characters of some of the intensest fevers, that the temperature is little changed, and that the diminished temperature which may be, or which may have been present, is never succeeded by any increase of heat. ”

“ The premonitory stage of yellow fever is characterized by an intense longing for refrigeration: fresh air, cold water, cooling fruits or fruit extracts. The fever-dreams of an ague-patient are crowded with visions of tree-shade and mountain-brooks. Even "chills" are often accompanied by a burning thirst; and during the cold stage of an intermittent fever the temperature of the system is actually higher than during the sweating stage ”

“ In cases of real intermittent fever—fever and ague or chills and fever—there are usually three distinct stages when the attack comes on—on what is usually termed fever day: the cold or shivering stage, the hot or burning stage, succeeded by the sweating.
Cold Stage
So soon as there are symptoms of a chill, a cup of quite hot ginger or cinnamon tea—not too strong—may be taken, the person keeping out of the sun, and, if inclined, going to bed and covering warmly. He should always undress, putting on a night-shirt or gown, for the convenience of changing when required. ”

“ The generality of persons, overlooking the course of atmospherical changes, imagine that the diminution in the number of cases of sporadic fever observable in summer is owing to the abundant consumption of the fruits of this season. ”

“ Do you know that even here we have no less than eleven different kinds of fever,—most of which know the power of killing?
I am very glad winter is coming, to lift the languors of the air and restore some energy to us. The summer is not like that North. At the North you have a clear, dry, burning air; here it is clear also, but dense, heavy, and so moist that it is never so hot as you have it. But no one dares expose himself to the vertical sun. I have noticed that even the chickens and the domestic animals, dogs, cats, etc., always seek shady places. They fear the sun. ”

“ When the constitution is disordered by excess of fire, continuous heat and fever are the result; when excess of air is the cause, then the fever is quotidian; when of water, which is a more sluggish element than either fire or air, then the fever is a tertian; when of earth, which is the most sluggish of the four, and is only purged away in a four-fold period, the result is a quartan fever, which can with difficulty be shaken off. ”

“ No! it is always for two entirely different reasons. It is either because we take an immediate delight in them; or else it is because we believe them to bring us good consequential fruits for life. When we speak disparagingly of 'feverish fancies,' surely the fever-process as such is not the ground of our disesteem for aught we know to the contrary, 103° or 104° Fahrenheit might be a much more favorable temperature for truths to germinate and sprout in, than the more ordinary blood-heat of 97 or 98 degrees. ”

“ Hence it is that fevers are produced in summer, in rural situations, and especially perhaps amid the most engaging scenery, by evening walks and exposure to what is naturally considered, as it is felt to be, a balmy and refreshing sequel to a hot day. ”

“ Again, when they contend that debility is not only the essence of fever in general, but is really characteristic of every type of it, they affirm what is indisputable of fevers in particular seasons, in particular climates or in particular constitutions ”

“ In those two years the article of fever was very high, contributing largely to the weekly totals of deaths from all causes, especially in the summer and autumn. In 1720 “fever” and “convulsions” again reached a maximum in September, the deaths from all causes in the week ending 20th September being 592. The winter of 1721 (February) is the first of a series when the weekly deaths of the cold season reach the enormous height of the most unwholesome summers, the causes being “fever,” “aged,” “consumption,” “dropsy,” and the like, with a due proportion of infantile deaths. ”

“ It was in the autumn of 1846, after the next very dry and hot summer, that cases of the same fever again became unusually common in many parts of England and Scotland. The same sequence has been remarked on more recent occasions and in various countries. It is explained by taking into account some other facts in the natural history of enteric fever. In nearly all countries in our latitudes, autumn is its principal season, and autumn is the season when the level of the water in the soil, or in the wells, is lowest. ”

“ Neither moisture nor smoke give that yellowish look here; it is the sand which the wind collects as it blows across the desert in its northern course. As the wind increases, so the temperature rises, and the extreme dryness of the air causes those unpleasant sensations felt with the first symptoms of fever. ”

“ Even so, in our long winters, multitudes of delicate people subsist on the daily waning strength which they acquired in the season when windows and doors were open, and fresh air was a constant luxury. No wonder we hear of spring fever and spring biliousness, and have thousands of nostrums for clearing the blood in the spring. All these things are the pantings and palpitations of a system run down under slow poison, unable to get a step farther. ”

“ From hence the periods of some fever-fits may take their origin, either simply, or by their accidental coincidence with lunar and solar periods, or with the diurnal periods of heat and cold, to be treated of below; for during the cold fit at the commencement of a fever, from whatever cause that cold fit may have been induced, it follows, 1. That the spirit of animation must become accumulated in the parts, which exert during this cold fit less than their natural quantity of action. 2. If the cause producing the cold fit does not increase, or becomes diminished ”

“ It has been admitted and proved in our days, that the elevation of the animal heat is just the specific character of the febrile condition. On the one hand, there is never any fever when the temperature continues at the normal degree ”

“ But as for Wine, which your Author commends in Fevers, I am utterly against it, unless the Fever proceed from a cold or crude cause, otherwise cooling Ptisans are most beneficial to those that are sick of a continual Fever, which for the most part is a general Fever throughout the whole body, one part infecting the other, until they be all infected, like as in the Plague. ”

“ Intermittent fever or ague.—— Every typical malarial fever is made up of a series of pyrexial attacks which recur at definite intervals of twenty-four, forty-eight, or seventy-two hours. Each attack consists of a stage of rigor, a stage of heat, and a stage of sweating; these are followed by a period, " the interval," of apyrexia -actual or relative. The duration and intensity of the constituent stages vary considerably. On the whole, they observe a certain proportion to each other; as a rule, the more pronounced the rigor, the higher the fever and the more profuse the sweating. ”

“ The Fever, in this Species of the Disease, is sometimes, very high; and the Shivering often endures for many Hours. It is succeeded by considerable Heat, and a violent Head-ach, which yet is sometimes attended with a Drowsiness. The Fever is commonly pretty high in the Evening, though sometimes but inconsiderable, and by the Morning perhaps there is none at all. ”

“ If a person has a fever from congelation, he is to be bathed in the decline; but if the fever be attended with catarrh, he is not to be bathed until concoction takes place; but those who have fever from exposure to heat are to be bathed while these symptoms are present. Those from exposure to cold are to be warmed moderately, and have the head bathed with such applications as the oil of iris and of nard. To those in whom the fever is occasioned by constriction of the skin, the proper remedies are, tepid baths of sweet waters, friction to open the pores, exercises, and an exhilarating diet. ”

“ Even when the premonitory symptoms of a cold are developing themselves, when, for example, what a medical man calls a rigor, or, as it is popularly designated, a shivering is felt, when we would naturally suppose that the animal temperature is below par, it is at that very moment higher than the normal, thus showing the onset of fever. ”

“ All the ancient authorities held that a fever consists of a preternatural increase of the Innate, or, as it is now called, Animal heat, which they considered as the instrument by [188] which the soul performs all the functions of the body. See Alexander Aphrod. (de Feb.) Thus, Palladius defines a fever to be “a preternatural heat, which begins in the heart, and is diffused by the arteries over the whole body, sensibly injuring the actions of the body.” Hippocrates, Galen, Aëtius, Alexander Trallian, Psellus, Leo, and Actuarius give similar definitions. ”

“ However different the predisposing, remote, or exciting causes of fever may be, whether debility from abstraction or action, whether heat or cold succeeding to each other, whether marsh or human miasmata, whether intemperance, a fright, or a fall, still I repeat, there can be but one fever. I found this proposition upon all the supposed variety of fevers having but one proximate cause. Thus fire is a unit, whether it be produced by friction, percussion, electricity, fermentation, or by a piece of wood or coal in a state of inflammation. ”

“ Human wisdom never learns. Sooner or later in October we have frost. The beautiful dewy morning two days ago was followed to-day by a no less beautiful morning; but the meadows were gray with frost. Says the physical geography: “When the weather is cold, so that but little vapor can be carried in the air, the dew-point may be below 32 degrees Fahrenheit. In this event what is deposited is solid frost.” ”

“ We were broken up as much by this toilsome march as by the all-enveloping heat, which in spite of all the precautions we could take, with helmet and dress of light linen, produced at last that kind of insolation which is shown by the fever that reigns normally in this country, and which a trifle will arouse. ”