Encyclopaedia Britannica, or, a Dictionary of arts, sciences, and miscellaneous literature : enlarged and improved. Illustrated with nearly six hundred engravings > Volume 13, MAT-MIC

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fuddenly funk, and death foon after enfued. Yet in
others, who feemed to be of a plethoric habit, the
tongue has been moift all along, though they have
been delirious moll of the time, and the heat of their
{kin and the ftrength and quicknefs of their pulfe have
continued, after the firft llage of the difeafe was over,
pretty near to that of their natural Irate in health, till
within a few hours of death •, and when they have had
a coma on them, one who is not well acquainted with
the nature of this difeafe would, from the pulfe, heat,
breathing, and other fymptoms, have taken them to be
in a natural deep. Others, when the pulfe has begun
to fink, and the fatal period feemed to be juit approach¬
ing, to the great furprife of all prefent have recovered
their fenfes, fat up and talked pretty cheerfully for an
hour or two, and in the midlt of this feeming fecurity
have been fuddenly feized with convulfions which car¬
ried them off immediately.
In the latter llage of this fever, the blood is fo atte¬
nuated and diffolved, that we frequently fee it flowing
not only out of the nofe and mouth, but from the
eyes, and even through the pores of the {kin ; great
quantities alfo of black, half-baked, or half-mortified
blood, are frequently voided both by vomiting and by
ftool, with great quantities of yellow and blackiih pu¬
trid bile by the fame paflages; and the urine, which was
before of a high icteritious colour, is now almoft black,
and is frequently mixed with a confiderable quantity
of half-diilblved blood. The pulfe, which vms much
funk before, now becomes very low, unequal, and in¬
termitting ; the breathing difficult and laborious } and
the anxiety inexpreffible 5 an oppreffion with a burn¬
ing heat about the praecordia comes on, though the ex¬
tremities are cold, and often covered with cold clam¬
my fweats ; a conftant delirium follows ; and then a
total lofs of the outward fenfes as Well as the judgment,
with livid fpots in many parts of the body, efpecially
about the praecordia •, and fometimes gangrenes in other
parts of the body, which are very foon fucceeded by
death.
In a fhort time after death, the body appears much
more full of livid, large, mortified fpots, particularly
about the praecordia and hypochondres, efpecially the
right 5 which parts feem, even from the firit feizure, to
be the principal feat of this terrible difeafe * and, upon
opening the bodies of thofe who die of it, we generally
find the gall-bladder and biliary du£ts turgid, and filled
with a putrid blackifh bile ; and the liver, ftomach,
and adjoining parts, full of livid or blaekifh mor¬
tified fpots } and the whole corpfe foon putrefies
after death, and can be kept but a few hours above
ground.
Dr Lind is of opinion, that the remarkable diflblu-
tion of the blood, the violent hamrorrhages, black vo¬
mit, and the other fymptoms which characterize the
yellow fever, are only accidental appearances in the
common fever of the Weft Indies } that they are to be
efteemed merely as adventitious, in the fame manner
as purple fpots and bloody urine are in the fmallpox,
or as an hiccough in the dyfentery : like thefe they only
appear when the difeafe is attended with a high de¬
gree of malignity, and therefore always indicate great
danger. This opinion, he thinks, is confirmed by an
obfervation of Dr Wind’s, that in 17 5° t^ie crew
a Dutch Ihip of war tvere diftreffed by the yellow fe-
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CINE. Pradice.
ver, accompanied w ith the black vomit j but when the Typhus,
{hip left the harbour, and changed the noxious land air j
for one more healthy, theiever continued, but was not
accompanied with the black vomit.
Difeafes fimilar to this fever, Dr Lind informs us,
may arife in any part of the world w here the air is in-
tenfely hot and unwholefome 5 and therefore he treats
as chimerical the notion of its being imported from one
part of the w orld to another. An example of this hap¬
pened at Cadiz in Spain, in the months of September
and OCtober 1764, when exceflive heat, and want of
rain for fome months, gave rife to violent, epidemic,
bilious diforders, refembling thofe of the Weft Indies,
of which 100 perfons often died in a day. At this time
the winds blew principally from the fouth, and after
funfet there fell an unufual and very heavy dew. But
his opinion on this fubjeCt is liable to firong objections.
And however the dileafe may originate, yet the late
introduction of it from Spain into the fortrefs of Gibral¬
tar, from which, by proper attention, it had been ex¬
cluded in former epidemics, demonftrates the contagious
nature of this fever beyond all poffibility of doubt.
It has been a matter of much difpute, whether the
yellow fever is of an infeCtious nature or not. Some
time ago it became an objeCt of confideration before
the Right Hon. the Lords Commiflioners of Trade and
Plantations, w here it was urged among other reafons,
for not removing the feat of government and juifice in
the ifland of Jamaica from Spanifti Town to Kingfton,
that there was danger from Greenwich hofpital, fituat-
ed near Kingfton, of an infeCtion from the yellow fever
being frequently communicated to that town. On this
affair a phyfician w'as confulted, w'ho had long praCtifed
in that ifland, and who gave it as his opinion, that from
the yellow fever in that ifland there was no infeCtion.
This was the opinion not only of that gentleman, but
of many others Avho had an opportunity of being well
acquainted with this fever in Jamaica. But this opinion
probably only arofe from thefe practitioners having con¬
founded the ordinary remittent fever of the Weft Indies,
which is often accompanied with bilious fymptoms, and
is from thence often denominated the yellow fever, with
the typhus iCteroides, a difeafe effentially different from
the bilious remittent which often prevails both in the
Weft and Eaft Indies. Dr Lind gives a remarkable
infiance of its being of an infeCtious nature.—A gen¬
tleman dying at Barbadocs of a yellow fever, his wear-
ing apparel and linen, packed up in a cheft, were fent
to his friends at Philadelphia 5 where, upon opening the
cheft, the family was taken ill; and the clothes being
unluckily hung abroad to be aired, they prefently dif-
fufed the contagion of the yellow fever over the whole
town, by which 200 perfons died.
In the defeription of the fame fever by Dr Lining,
as it appeared in South Carolina, there are feveral parti¬
culars confiderably different from that by Dr Hillary.
According to the former, people complained for a day
or two before the attack, of a headach, pain in the loins
and extremities, efpecially in the knees and calves of
the legs, lofs of appetite, debility, and a fpontaneous
laffitude. Some, however, were feized fuddenly, with¬
out any fuch previous fymptoms. After a chillinefs
and horror, with which this difeafe generally invades,
a fever fucceeded. The pulfe was very frequent, till
near the termination of the fever, and was generally