Lectures on the acute specific diseases : being the Gulstonian lectures, delivered at the Royal College of Physicians, March, 1853 / by William Jenner, M.D.

  • Jenner, William, Sir, 1815-1898.
Date:
1853
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Lectures on the acute specific diseases : being the Gulstonian lectures, delivered at the Royal College of Physicians, March, 1853 / by William Jenner, M.D. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

    7/60 (page 5)
    He divided acute diseases into two great classes, viz., sta- tionary and intercurrent fevers. The latter, he held, occurred at particular seasons, and owed their origin to appreciable atmospheric changes,—e. g., temperature and moisture. Pleurisy and quinsy were adduced by him as examples of this class. In the present day, the majority of the dis- eases arranged by Sydenham under the head of intercurrent fevers are believed to be essentially local affections, the constitutional disturbance or fever which accompanies them being regarded as symptomatic. ^ Of stationary fevers, Sydenham distinguished two kinds, viz., the typical or proper fevers,and the twin sisters of the typical or the variable fever. The typical or proper sta- tionary fevers preserved their essential characters through a series of years, only from time to time they varied in some particulars a little; and yet, ever amid the prevailing variety, cases in all points identical with the model or type of the disease occurred. Of these typical or proper sta- tionary fevers, small-pox and measles were the best-defined species. In the epidemics of these diseases which Syden- ham witnessed, both presented, for a while, deviations from what h^ considered to be their most perfect form ; but still, notwithstanding these deviations, they preserved their essen- tial characters. Sydenham never doubted the essential identity of the measles of the dysenteric constitution of 1669, the most perfect of their genus, with those of 1674, which adhered less to their proper type. What I have termed Sydenham's second class of stationary fevers, was constituted by those diseases which, in the pre- sent day, have been termed continued fever. The diseases of this class he held to be most variable in all their charac- ters,—varying in symptoms and in the treatment they required with each change in the constitution of the atmo- sphere, and, consequently, with each change in the prevail- ing epidemic. By epidemic constitution, Sydenham signified some state of the atmosphere arising from certain hidden and inex- plicable changes within the bowels of the earth,—a con- dition originating, that is to say, neither in heat, cold, wet, nor drought,—a condition known to exist only by its effects in determining the origin, or spread, or peculiarity in sym- ptoms, of any one of the stationary fevers, and of their twin sisters, the variable fevers, which accompanied them. Now, the tendency of more recent^ investigations has been to remove the whole of the diseases included in the group of variable fevers into that of typical or proper fevers,—to erect from the individuals of this class a series of distinct species. Taking small-pox and measles as the type of the proper stationary fevers, I propose to examine what are the pecu- liarities of these two diseases which render them thus fitted to be the type of a class, and why they are separated from each other as distinct species; what general characters they have in common, and what are the special characters which