The convalescence from this disease was marked, in some instances, by a sudden revival of the venereal appetite. Several weddings took place in the city between persons who had recovered from the fever. Twelve took place among the convalescents in the hospital at Bush-hill. I wish I could add that the passion of the sexes for each other, among those subjects of public charity, was always gratified only in a lawful way. Delicacy forbids a detail of the scenes of debauchery which were practised near the hospital, in some of the tents which had been appropriated for the reception of convalescents. It was not peculiar to this fever to produce this morbid excitability of the venereal appetite. It was produced in a much higher degree by the plague which raged in Messina in the year 1743.
VII. The lymphatic and glandular system did not escape without some signs of this disease. I met with three cases of swellings in the inguinal, two in the parotid, and one in the cervical glands: all these patients recovered without a suppuration of their swellings. They were extremely painful in one case in which no redness or inflammation appeared. In the others there was considerable inflammation and but little pain.
In one of the cases of inguinal buboes, the whole force of the disease seemed to be collected into the lymphatic system. The patient walked about, and had no fever nor pain in any part of his body, except in his groin. In another case which came under my care, a swelling and pain extended from the groin along the spermatic cord into one of the testicles. These glandular swellings were not peculiar to this epidemic. They occurred in the yellow fever of Jamaica, as described by Dr. Williams, and always with a happy issue of the disease[26]. A similar concentration of the contagion of the plague in the lymphatic glands is taken notice of by Dr. Patrick Russel.
VIII. The skin exhibited many marks of this fever. It was preternaturally warm in some cases, but it was often preternaturally cool. In some there was a distressing coldness in the limbs for two or three days. The yellow colour from which this fever has derived its name, was not universal. It seldom appeared where purges had been given in sufficient doses. The yellowness rarely appeared before the third, and generally about the fifth or seventh day of the fever. Its early appearance always denoted great danger. It sometimes appeared first on the neck and breast, instead of the eyes. In one of my patients it discovered itself first behind one of his ears, and on the crown of his head, which had been bald for several years. The remissions and exacerbations of the fever seemed to have an influence upon this colour, for it appeared and disappeared altogether, or with fainter or deeper shades of yellow, two or three times in the course of the disease. The eyes seldom escaped a yellow tinge; and yet I saw a number of cases in which the disease appeared with uncommon malignity and danger, without the presence of this symptom.
There was a clay-coloured appearance in the face, in some cases, which was very different from the yellow colour which has been described. It occurred in the last stage of the fever, and in no instance did I see a recovery after it.
There were eruptions of various kinds on the skin, each of which I shall briefly describe.
1. I met with two cases of an eruption on the skin, resembling that which occurs in the scarlet fever. Dr. Hume says, pimples often appear on the pit of the stomach, in the yellow fever of Jamaica. I examined the external region of the stomach in many of my patients, without discovering them.
2. I met with one case in which there was an eruption of watery blisters, which, after bursting, ended in deep, black sores.
3. There was an eruption about the mouth in many people, which ended in scabs, similar to those which take place in the common bilious fever. They always afforded a prospect of a favourable issue of the disease.