AND DIMINISHED RESPIRATION. 1039 



blood (luring health, it is not surprising that he 

 should have given no explanation of the manner 

 in which the various predisposing and exciting 

 causes bring on the cold stage, nor how the latter 

 produces the subsequent fever. 



That respiration is diminished during the chill 

 that ushers in the various forms of fever, pneu- 

 monia, bronchitis, influenza, and every other 

 species of constitutional disease, would appear 

 from some experiments of Jurine, who found that 

 less carbonic acid was generated during the cold 

 stage, and after blood letting, than during health. 

 And it was found by Nysten that the same effect 

 was produced by an obstructed or congested state 

 of the lungs. The consequence of which is, that 

 during the cold stage of ordinary fever, the tem- 

 perature under the tongue is reduced from three 

 to six degrees below the normal standard ; while 

 in those malignant intermittents termed algid, it 

 sometimes falls fifteen or twenty degrees below 



feet health,) resembled that of persons labouring under the worst 

 forms of the epidemic ; the serous portion on separating was of 

 a yellowish or orange hue, and strikingly different from that of 

 persons residing in the pure air of the country. He further 

 states, that hundreds who escaped any formal attack of the fever, 

 complained, at times, of nausea, giddiness, head-ache, constipa- 

 tion, general languor, with pains in the back and limbs, shewing 

 that the disease existed in a latent state, and required only some 

 exciting cause, such as exposure to cold, fatigue, or intemperance, 

 to bring it into full action. And it is notorious, that the inhabit- 

 ants of malarious districts are generally pale or sallow, indicating 

 an impoverished state of the blood. 



