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SYMPATHETIC FEVER 



Is characterised by the same phenomena as indicate 

 idiopathic fever ; only they spring from a local cause, and 

 exhibit greater violence of symptoms. Along with consti- 

 tutional irritation, there is often superadded a disturbance, 

 arising from the pain which gives the fever an alarming 

 character, and in some cases operates so on the vital 

 functions as to destroy life. I remember a horse which 

 most improperly had all four legs blistered at one time ; as 

 the blisters rose, sympathetic fever sprung up, and kept on 

 increasing, until it reached a height which killed the 

 animal. 



Cause. — Sympathetic fever may be caused by any serious 

 injury, or by local injury. In some injuries, so great is the 

 pain produced, that fever commences even before inflamma- 

 tion sets in: such is often the case in open joints and 

 punctured wounds, more especially punctures of the foot. 

 Where the injury is of a serious nature, we may look for 

 the rise of fever as inflammation becomes established ; and, 

 whether local inflammation be produced in this manner, or 

 whether it arise spontaneously, it never exists in any degree, 

 without being attended by sympathetic fever. Inflamma- 

 tions of the lungs, bowels, brain, urinary organs, &c., are 

 all thus aggravated ; so that every one of these diseases is 

 resolvable into a local inflammation, and a sympathetic 

 affection generally ; the one will require as much of our 

 attention as the other. 



Treatment. — It would be idle to lay down any directions 

 for the treatment of sympathetic fever without being ac- 

 quainted with the cause of its origin; though there are 

 many cases in which it outruns the local disease, and absorbs 

 our attention, without needing any reference to its cause. 

 Injuries of tendinous or fibrous textures are very apt to 

 occasion sympathetic fever. A horse died from a nail having 

 run into the frog ; another died in consequence of being 

 nicked : in both cases there was no known possibility of 

 arresting the fever. Sympathetic fever runs much higher 



