VARIOUS FORMS OF FEVER. 1057 



two, or three days, unless prevented by the use 

 of bark and other tonics, or by employing the hot 

 bath two or three hours before the period of the 

 cold stage. And as the vital properties of the blood 

 are less impaired in quartans than in tertians, the 

 paroxysm is shorter, while the intermission is 

 longer, in the former than in the latter. For the 

 same reasons, the cold stage is longer in tertians 

 than in quotidians, and longer in the latter than 

 in the continued form of fever; while the pa- 

 roxysms become longer, and the intermissions 

 shorter, until the latter wholly disappear. 



But when individuals have been exposed for a 

 considerable time to the concentrated malaria of 

 pestilential districts, crowded and ill ventilated 

 dwellings, poor houses, transport ships, or prisons, 

 the vital properties of the blood are so far im- 

 paired, that almost immediately after the com- 

 mencement of the cold stage, and often before it 

 is completely formed, the fever comes on. And 

 as it is impossible that it should cease before the 

 nutritive properties of the blood are restored, it 

 continues with only slight remissions till the ter- 

 mination of the disease, or the death of the patient. 

 When the exciting cause is extremely virulent, 

 as in the black hole of Calcutta, the blood is so 

 far vitiated in the course of a few hours, or per- 

 haps even a shorter time, that the chill is so 

 quickly followed by fever as to be scarcely per- 

 ceptible. When the streams of life have been 



