PART 2
II. Beginning early in the summer, throughout
the summer and in winter many of those who had
been ailing a long time took to their beds in a state
of consumption, while many also who had hitherto
been doubtful sufferers at this time showed undoubted
symptoms. Some showed the symptoms now for
the first time ; these were those whose constitution
inclined to be consumptive. Many, in fact most of
these, died ; of those who took to their beds I do not
know one who survived even for a short time. Death
came more promptly than is usual in consumption,
and yet the other complaints, which will be described
presently, though longer and attended with fever,
were easily supported and did not prove fatal. For
consumption was the worst of the diseases that
occurred, and alone was responsible for the great
mortality.
In the majority of cases the symptoms were these.
Fever with shivering, continuous, acute, not completely
intermitting, but of the semitertian type ;
remitting during one day they were exacerbated on
the next, becoming on the whole more acute. Sweats
[p. 151]
were continual, but not all over the body. Severe
chill in the extremities, which with difficulty
recovered their warmth. Bowels disordered, with
bilious, scanty, unmixed, thin, smarting stools,
causing the patient to get up often. Urine either
thin, colourless,
1 unconcocted
and scanty, or thick
and with a slight deposit, not settling favourably,
but with a crude and unfavourable deposit. The
patients frequently coughed up small, concocted
sputa, brought up little by little with difficulty.
Those exhibiting the symptoms in their most
violent form showed no concoction at all, but
continued spitting crude sputa. In the majority
of these cases the throat was throughout painful
from the beginning, being red and inflamed. Fluxes
slight, thin, pungent. Patients quickly wasted away
and grew worse, being throughout averse to all food
and experiencing no thirst. Delirium in many cases
as death approached. Such were the symptoms of
the consumption.
