On the Treatment of Hyperpyrexia as Illustrated in Acute Articular Rheumatism by Means of the External Application of Cold baixar o livro de graça

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1871 Excerpt: ...in those coming under my own observation, or recorded by others, it has rarely exceeded 140. The possibility of this termination, however, must teach us to watch the thermometer very closely in all cases of acute rheumatism; and this duty becomes the more imperative since it is now shown that we have not merely to study a pathological fatal termination, but that the alternative of the death or possible recovery of the patient may depend on the care of the medical attendant in this respect. It is not merely the apparently severe cases at the outset that are liable to this termination. Out of 15 cases where the data have been accurately recorded by others or by myself, in 4 the temperature, prior to the extreme rise taking place, did not exceed 104, in 2 it was below 103, and in 2 below 102; in 3 only had it exceeded 105. In one case, indeed, of Dr. Ringer's, the patient, who had recovered from rheumatic fever, was about to leave the hospital next day, and died within two hours with a temperature of 110, after being apparently in fair health. It is known that pericarditis, as such, has little influence in determining this condition; and in 7 cases, including one of my own, the heart has been found almost unaffected. Indeed, many of these cases are singularly free from anatomical changes in the viscera. The almost entire freedom from changes in the brain or its membranes, in all the post-mortem examinations made of these cases, entirely disposes of the theory of metastasis; and though they have been termed instances of ' cerebral rheumatism, ' the name thus given scarcely defines their real nature. ' It was not noticed in the two cases I have here recorded until after the In one case only have ecchymoses been found in the meninges; but t...