1062 TYPHUS CAUSED BY COLD ALONE. 



And that the most malignant typhoid fever is 

 generated by the influence of cold, without ma- 

 laria, is sufficiently attested by the records of 

 medicine ; especially in the United States, where, 

 about thirty years ago, an exceedingly fatal dis- 

 ease, termed cold plague, or pneumonia typhoides, 

 prevailed throughout the western country, and 

 some parts of New England, during the middle 

 and latter parts of winter.* It is not sufficiently 

 understood by the community, that daily or fre- 

 quent exposure to cold alone, until the general 

 circulation is enfeebled, and respiration dimi- 

 nished, (as shewn by the coldness of the extremi- 



* The most prominent symptom of the disease, as in the more 

 malignant forms of typhus in Europe, was a congestion of the 

 lungs and abdominal viscera, with a dissolved condition of the 

 blood. In all such cases, the obvious indication is to persist in 

 the employment of fomentations, the warm bath, or the application 

 of dry heat, together with warm cordials, until the action of the 

 heart, and circulation through the lungs are roused, the vital 

 properties of the blood improved, and the secretions restored. 

 The same observations apply equally to cholera, tetanus, hydro- 

 phobia, and other spasmodic diseases, all of which are prototyped 

 in the cold stage of fever. In the Medical Gazette of July, 1837, 

 there is an account of spotted fever, attended with a livid hue of 

 the skin, and the same viscid or dark and grumous state of the 

 blood as in malignant cholera. After finding (says Dr. Wilson, 

 of Middlesex Hospital,) that the ordinary treatment failed, the 

 warm bath, with cold applications to the head, and a saline mix- 

 ture composed of 30 grs. carbonate of soda, 20 grs. chloride of 

 sodium, and 6 grs. chlorate of potass, were employed; when 17 

 out of 19 cases recovered ; whether owing to the stimulating 

 influence of the warm bath, or to the saline mixture, must be left 

 to the decision of the intelligent medical reader. 



