I shall now deliver a short account of the symptoms which indicated a favourable and an unfavourable issue of the disease.
It has been said[8], that the signs of danger vary in this fever, from the influence of the weather. The autumn of 1798 confirmed, in many instances, the truth of this remark.
I saw no instance of death where a bleeding occurred from the gums on the fourth or fifth day, provided depleting remedies had been used from the beginning of the disease. Few recovered who had this symptom in 1793.
I saw three recoveries after convulsions in the year 1798. All died who were convulsed in 1793 and 1797.
A dry, hoarse, and sore throat was followed by death in every case in which it occurred in my practice. In the fever of 1793 a sore throat was a favourable sign. It was one of the circumstances which determined me to use a salivation in that fever.
The absence of pain was always a bad sign. Small, but frequent stools, and the continuance of a redness in the eyes after the ample use of depleting remedies, were likewise bad signs.
An appetite for food on the fourth or fifth day of the fever, without a remission or cessation of the fever, was always unfavourable.
A want of delicacy, in exposing parts of the body which are usually covered, was a bad symptom. I saw but one recovery where it took place. Boccacio says the same symptom occurred in the plague in Italy. “It suspended (he tells us) all modesty, so that young women, of great rank and delicacy, submitted to be attended, dressed, and even cleansed by male nurses.”
I have remarked, in another place, that but two of my patients recovered who had the hiccup.
A dry tongue was a bad sign. I saw but one recovery where it occurred, and none where the tongue was black. A moist and natural tongue, where symptoms of violence or malignity appeared in other parts of the body, was always followed by a fatal issue of the disease.