PRACTICE OF PHYSIC. 



felt till the hot stage be formed, and then is usually attended 

 with a throbbing of the temples. The headach continues till 

 the sweat breaks out ; but as this flows more freely that grad- 

 ually goes off. At the same time with the headach, there are 

 commonly pains of the back, and of some of the great joints ; 

 and these pains have the same course with the headach. 



XXIII. These are nearly the whole, and are at least the chief 

 of the phenomena which more constantly appear in the paroxysm 

 of an intermittent fever ; and we have pointed out their ordin- 

 ary concourse and succession. With respect to the whole of 

 them, however, it is to be observed, that, in different cases, the 

 several phenomena are in different degrees ; that the series of 

 them is more or less complete ; and that the several parts or 

 stages, in the time they occupy, are in a different proportion to 

 one another. " This variety is founded in this, that all these 

 several symptoms are in various degrees in different cases, and 

 the whole series occupies a shorter or longer space of time, 

 which may be said to extend from five hours, which is the 

 shortest, to twenty hours, which is the longest ; and we also find 

 that the three different stages occupy different portions of time 

 with respect to one another ; thus the cold fit is sometimes 

 hardly observable ; at other times it occupies several hours ; 

 sometimes there is no hot fit, the sweat breaking out along with 

 the heat ; and, lastly, there is sometimes a hot fit formed without 

 any sweating. 



" Here it is particularly worthy of the notice of practitioners, 

 that the cold fit frequently proves fatal to the patient without 

 any hot fit being formed in consequence of it. Before the per- 

 son dies, however, some degree of hot fit is frequently formed, 

 which has not been attended to by writers ; indeed few persons 

 appear to die in the paroxysm of an intermittent after the hot 

 fit is fully formed. So far with respect to the phenomena as 

 they refer to a single paroxysm." . 



XXIV. It is very seldom that a fever consists of a single par- 

 oxysm, such as we have now described ; " so that we must go 

 further, and speak of the relation of different paroxysms to one 

 another, and thereby approach nearer to the history of the whole 

 of fever." And it more generally happens, after a certain length 

 of time has elapsed from the ceasing of the paroxysm, that the 



