Note 685 — BOOK III.—OF THE EPIDEMICS.

This complication cannot fail to attract attention, from its resemblance to an epidemic which prevailed in Scotland in the year 1843. In this epidemic, as in the present case, the fever was very subject to relapses and to jaundice at an early stage. Hippocrates, in one of his Aphorisms, pronounces jaundice in fevers before the seventh day to be a fatal symptom. (iv., 62, 64.) Galen justly thinks it somewhat singular that no further mention of the jaundice is made in the course of the report; but he inclines from this to draw the conclusion that it remained in the same state throughout. As there was no crisis by the stomach, the bowels, the urine, or sweat, he concludes that the jaundice could not have been carried off. From all that has been said, he adds, it is clear that the organ primarily affected was the liver. Galen, then, decidedly opposes the view taken in the Explanation of the Characters respecting the cause of this man’s death, which he contends was not connected with any suppression of the alvine discharges, but with the affection of the liver. On the Scotch Epidemic, see Ed. and Lond. Med. Journal, March, 1844.