Dr. Mac Culloch on Fevers, if 



symptoms and diseases which had been attributed to common 

 inflammation, or other very different causes, the bulk of the 

 volume in question is occupied on these subjects, while he 

 passes cursorily over that which has been well understood 

 and sufficiently described in other medical writings. Hence 

 that character of entire originality which pervades the whole 

 book : since, with the exception of authorities introduced for 

 specific purposes, we do not find a single passage, and scarcely 

 a single train of thought, which we can trace to any former 

 medical work. So much the worse for his repose: since he 

 will have to endure the fate that no reformer ever yet 

 escaped. 



For these reasons we may pass over the first chapter^ which 

 is a sketch of the common acknowledged Remittent, intro- 

 duced merely as a basis of reference, and take up this volume 

 at the second. In this we have a careful and full description 

 of what is commonly called a nervous or low fever : a disease 

 appearing under many different forms, and very generally 

 entirely misunderstood. He shows that Cullen has con- 

 founded it with Typhus mitior ; while he proves, from its 

 symptoms, its duration, its passage into intermittent, and 

 occasionally from its causes, often to be traced, that it is a 

 variety of the remittent or marsh fever ; though not denying 

 that it may possibly arise from other causes than malaria, 

 nor denying, either, that there is a real Typhus mitior, while 

 he shows how these two mild fevers can be distinguished. 

 And if the termination in intermittent is a common event in 

 this disease, as it is a proof of its real nature, so does he show 

 that it is sometimes followed by " periodical head-ach, tooth- 

 ach, intermitting rheumatism, and even marked neuralgia :" 

 facts which serve, in conjunction with many others, to esta- 

 blish the connection of neuralgia in general with marsh 

 fever. 



It is also here shown that this particular fever is subject to 

 relapses, and that it thus becomes even habitual : while if 

 this feature, never occurring in the contagious fevers, is a 

 further proof of its nature, a knowledge of the cause becomes 

 most important in practice ; since it is through exposure 

 to malaria that the relapses are renewed, and since the only 

 cure is avoidance — not un frequently change of residence, 

 when an insalubrious air is the renewing cause. Hence the 

 author has been induced to be very full on the subject of 

 this fever when it assumes the chronic or relapsing form : 

 while, if this disorder is as frequent as we should be induced 

 to believe from his statements, and as we know it to be ia 



