Dr. Francis Sayre informed me, that he saw a child, in which the morbid affection of the wind-pipe, called cynanche trachealis, appeared with all the usual symptoms of yellow fever.
I attended one case in which the force of the disease was weakened, in its first stage, by a profuse hæmorrhage from the bowels. This hæmorrhage was followed by a bloody diarrhœa, which continued for four or five weeks.
Persons of all ages and colours were affected by this fever. I saw a case of it in a child of six months old. In the blacks, it was attended with less violence and mortality than in white people. It affected many persons who had previously had it.
The disease was excited by the same causes which excited it in former years. I observed a number of people to be affected by the fever, who lived in solitude in their houses, without doing any business. The system, in these persons, was predisposed to the disease, by the debility induced by ceasing to labour at their former occupations. It was excited in a young man by a fractured leg. He died five days afterwards, with a black vomiting. I observed, in several instances, an interval of four and five days between the debility induced upon the system by a predisposing, and the action of an exciting cause. Dr. Clark says, he has seen an interval of several weeks between the operation of those causes, in the yellow fever of Dominique. These facts are worthy of notice, as they lead to a protracted use of the means of obviating an attack of the disease.
During my attendance upon the sick, I twice perceived in my system the premonitory signs of the epidemic. Its complete formation was prevented each time by rest, a moderate dose of physic, and a plentiful sweat.
I shall now take notice of the different manner in which patients died of this fever. The detail may be useful, by unfolding new principles in the animal economy, as well as new facts in the history of the disease.
1. The disease terminated in death, in some instances, by means of convulsions.
2. By delirium, which prompted to exertions and actions similar to those which take place in madness.
3. By profuse hæmorrhages from the gums. This occurred in two patients of Dr. Stewart.