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fevers; to which the author appears to have paid confiderable attention. Our author differs from those who regard the black vomit as of different kinds; after his description of it, he informs us that two other discharges from the ftomach have been called black vomit, the diftinction between which he endeavours to fix. The first a thick and tough phlegm or mucus; the other, blood effused in the stomach and duodenum, by the rupture of fome veffel.

An analysis of the black vomit, founded on experiment, follows its description; from which the author infers, that it confifts of, "the phofphoric and frequently the muriatic acids, lime, foda, refin; water compofed of hydrogene and oxygene; azote, a colouring matter, or unctuous animal fubftance; fulphurated hydrogene gas, probably a faccharine substance; the phofphoric acid combined with foda and lime, forming phofphate of foda and of lime." This analyfis differs in several points from that of Dr. Cathrall.

"An attempt to prove the non-contagious nature of malignant fever," follows next, in which it is unnecessary to pursue the author, as the facts on which he founds his opinion are too important not to be generally known.

The last divifion of his treatise, confifts of " experiments on the black vomit," to discover its nature, properties and qualities. In these, animals fed with this matter were not affected in their health, neither did any bad effect relult from its application to wounds, &c. When injected into the jugular vein of a dog, it produced death in ten minutes, but water did the fame. When dropt into the eye no pain or inflammation followed. No bad effect refulted from inhaling the fteam when evaporated. The extract (left from its evaporation), made into pills, and swallowed, produced no effect on the system; neither did the fluid black vomit diluted, and undiluted, even in the amount of 3 ij.*

• This experiment, which I had an opportunity of seeing the author make, I must confider as unneceffary as it was difgufting. After the proof of its harmlefs nature upon animals, it required only a very strong stomach to extend it to the human fubject. E.

The ferum of the blood and faliva of patients labouring under malignant fever inferted beneath the cuticle produced no effect, neither did the ferum, fwallowed in confiderable quantities.

The author concludes by attempting to fhew wherein the malignant fever differs most materially from fuch diseases as are contagious, afferting as a fact that it is not contagious; that it is rarely infectious, that it is always an endemic, and frequently an epidemic of the United States.

DEATHS.

AT Charkof in Russia, lately died, A. F. M. Willich, M. D.-Author of Lectures on Diet and Regimen ;-and of the Domestic Encyclopedia. This gentleman had been appointed to the professorship of medicine, and first government-physician at the new university of Charkof, in the Ukraine; 1000 miles south of St. Petersburgh. To this place he had removed with his family a very short period before his death,

At Madagascar, the celebrated botanist, André Michaux, Author of the History of the Oaks of America. -For an account of this valuable performance, see the New York Medical Repository, vol. vi. p. 64.

NOTICE TO CORRESPONDENTS.

Dr. Hutchinson's observations on fractures of the leg, with a drawing of his splints, have been received; also Dr. G. Williamson's observations on chorea. They will appear in the next number.

An anonymous paper has been received; which will be attended to, if the editor is made acquainted with the author's name.-As much responsibility attaches to the editor of a work of this nature; it must be evident, that the authority upon which any communication rests, should be known to him at least. If any gentleman wishes his name to be withheld from the public, it shall certainly be done; but without this confidence in the editor, no communication intended for the Medical Museum, can be attended to.

The editor thanks "a friend" for his hints on the best plan of conducting a periodical publication of this kind. It will not, however, be prudent to change the plan he has adopted, to meet the wishes of all who may differ from him, lest, like the man and his ass, by attempting to please every body, he may please no one.

VOL. I.....No. II.

DR. DRYSDALE'S Hiftory of the Yellow Fever at Baltimore, continued from page 42.

YOU

LETTER IV.

s;

YOU have demonftrated, dear fir, in your late invaluable work, how far the "fimplex munditiis" triumphs over the pedantic phrafeology and mechanical forms of the schools and how much more elegance truth may acquire, from the natural garb of fimplicity. I will therefore endeavour to imitate your example, whilst I detail the symptoms that appeared in the various fyftems of the body, which I will pursue, as forming the different divifions termed by physiologists the vital, animal, and natural functions.

I. In the VITAL FUNCTIONS We include the fanguiferous fyftem, the organs of refpiration, and the brain and its appendages. I fhall examine the fymptoms,

1. In the Sanguiferous Syftem.

The phenomena exhibited by the blood-veffels were greatly varied in fome refpects, uniform in others, and interesting in all. Whether we apply this obfervation to the varying conditions of the pulfe, or to that convulfive action of the arterial system, which often burst asunder the coats of the vessels, the refult will be equally just and striking. The influence of the VOL. I.

R

late yellow fever was discovered under the following appearances as it related to the

Pulfe.

The pulfe was tenfe in every form of the disease from its first appearance till its declension in October. It bore this peculiar character in the remiffions of the fever; and even when it commenced its career under the infidious cover of an intermittent. It was alfo quick; the mind would be deceived into a belief, that the pulse was flower than it really was, upon account of this peculiarity in its nature,-the fyftole of the heart being performed in an inftantaneous period of time.

Under the impreffion of every temperature of the air, and under every degree of violence of the difeafe, the pulfe held forth another emblem of its character, by hobbling through its functions. A full pulfation was fucceeded by another of lefs force, and no two fucceffive ftrokes resembled each other in frequency. In one perfon, I counted three pulfations in onefixth of a minute; in another fixth, they amounted to the number of fifteen. This irregularity was more or lefs obfervable in every cafe, and in every period of the difeafe.

In many instances an intermiffion occurred in the pulfe. It took place after the fecond, third, fourth, fifth, or fixth stroke. This was ftrongly exemplified in one cafe, in which the intermiffions were more frequent, when a diminished heat of the extremities indicated a flight remiffion of fever. This condition of the pulfe occurred fometimes after the fourteenth stroke; and I well remember to have obferved in the convalefcence of a perfon who recovered from a very violent attack, an intermiffion in the pulfe to which he was not fubject when in health.

The pulfe varied much alfo as to its fulness and frequency. While the very hot weather added to the violence of the fever, a fmall pulfe was more generally obfervable; but it acquired increase of fulness, as the feafon advanced. In the first hours, I have fometimes obferved the pulfe almoft imperceptible at the

wrifts: nor was it an unusual occurrence, that the pulse, a short period before the triumph of death, became more full, than it had been in the early stage of the disease.

Within the few firft hours of the disease, the pulse varied in different perfons, from fifty pulfations to an hundred and fortytwo. After the first day, it ranged generally from eighty-five to ninety-five in the fame period of time; but as death approached, it became flower, while it preferved its fulness to the last minutes of life.

How fhall we account for thefe peculiar phenomena in the fanguiferous fyftem? Why is the pulfe fometimes fmall, fometimes full, but always irregular and tenfe in the yellow fever?

The tenfion of the pulfe is fo common an occurrence, that it will be almost useless to dwell on it for a moment. This fpecies does not depend upon the action of the heart alone, but upon that of the arteries alfo upon the blood. There was a firmness in thefe latter veffels, that prevented them from yielding readily to the preffure of the fingers. It is fufficiently obvious that the tensenefs of the pulfe depends further, upon excess of stimulus acting on the heart and arteries. May not the fmallnefs of the pulfe be referred to the fame caufe? May it not be inferred from the following circumstances, that it depended upon excess of stimulus ?-When the great ftimulating power of heat was fuperadded to that of the remote caufe of the fever, or when this remote caufe was roufed with fudden violence into action, this condition of the pulfe was most observable. But when the ftimulus of heat was abstracted in a great degree by the progrefs of autumn, the fmallness of the pulfe was feldom a prevailing symptom. We may infer it alfo from the nature of the means, which removed the finallness and gave fulness to the pulfe. Did not the exceffive ftimulus, applied especially to the heart, excite its contractions before its ventricles were filled with blood, (for it was not only fmall, but frequent ;) and therefore by protruding no great quantity at each fyftole, and the firmnefs of the arteries not eafily yielding to its impulfe, their diftenfion appeared inconfiderable?

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