160 
THE NIGER FEVER. 
appointed the bright hopes of its philanthropical 
originators, will no doubt have invested it with an 
interest — even to the general reader, — which medical 
subjects seldom possess; we have therefore ventured to 
collate an outline of it from the official report 
transmitted October 8th, 1841, by Mr. Thomson to Sir 
W. Bm-nett, Medical Director-General of II. M. Navy. 
In attemjDting a general description of the disease 
as it manifested itself on board II.M.S.V. ‘Soudan,’ 
some difficulty occurred from the dissimilarity of the 
symptoms not only at the commencement but during 
the progress of most of the cases. In nearly all, 
however, premonitory symptoms were found on inquiry 
to have existed at least one day prior to the attack, 
either in form of languor, general debility, or sensa- 
tion of chilliness, but from the anxiety of the patients 
to impute those feelings to any other cause than that 
of fever, medical assistance was avoided until the fol- 
lowing day, when the symptoms were less equivocal. 
At first the head was not so severely affected as in 
most forms of remittent fever, a sense of fulness and 
constriction nevertheless was always complained of ; 
the eyes were suffused, the conjunctiva having a 
yellow tinge; general pains, especially of the lower 
extremities and loins, this last mostly aggravated on 
the third day. In all cases the heat and dryness of 
skin were very great. Bowels irregular. The tongue 
covered with a thin white clammy fur, changing into 
a yellowish or brownish coating, with edges of deep 
