340 Essay oil the Intermittent and Remittent Diseases. 



Intermitting fever is an unknown disordered condition of the whole 

 nervous system produced by Malaria ; generally though not always 

 united to the neuralgia or local disease; essentially paroxysmal; 

 mysteriously regulated in its returns by a period of twelve hours, 

 multiples, or suhmultiples, with intervals of ease and tendency to 

 relapses ; the pain of the local afFection, subsiding and returning with 

 the fever* The brain is always in a greater or less degree affected, 

 and the indescribable restlessness and misery, which are coextensive 

 with the whole frame, are referable to this unknown condition, or dis- 

 order of the whole nervous system. 



The locally affected nerve, by whatever action it is, that it suffers 

 pain when the fever is present, possesses the power of inducing an 

 excited circulation, or an inflammatory tendency in the neighboring 

 vessels, with Increased sensibility and tenderness : proceeding often 



to a species of active inflammation. These effects will vary accor- 

 ding to tlie nature and offices of the affected parts, and the nerves 

 which supply them. Thus when this peculiar inflammation occurs, 

 it may produce pleurisy, rheumatism, gastritis, cholera, opthalmia, or 

 other forms of disease with the same visible aspects and symptoms, as 

 when arising from other and opposite causes. In other words, there 

 is an action produced by this condition of the nerves analogous to 

 phlegmasia or ordinary inflammation which is not identical with it, 

 though assuming strictly similar appearances ; or if identical in ac- 

 tion, yet being united to, or caused by the diseased state of the nerves, 

 it becomes of an opposite nature or character, not to be treated as 

 identical without injurious results. It is not ascertained in what 

 manner the nervous system is affected by die agency of Malaria, 

 but a probable conjecture is, that it may be similar to the action of 

 narcotic poisons, because in the warm climates when the symptoms 

 are more marked, the attack often commences with apoplexy or sud- 

 den stupor, and tlie sensations immediately preceding the suspension 

 of intellect, are described as resembling those produced by Hemlock, 

 Nightshade, &c. he. 



Every form of intermittent is marked by a peculiarly impaired state 

 of the nervous energy, but whetlier this peculiarity is produced by 

 the acdon of the poison, or whether it is a sequel to its destroying ef- 

 fects, it is doubdess the reason why every reducing medicine, and 

 every kind of debilitating agency are found pernicious, and it is this 

 fact which renders the view taken of it in the present work of such 

 vast importance. 





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