The Homoeopathic Vade Mecum of Modern Medicine and Surgery

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1869. Excerpt: ... The General Diseases are divided, in the new nomenclature, into two sections, A and B. Section A comprehends those disorders which appear to involve a morbid condition of the blood, hence called Blood diseases; and which, for the moxt part, run a definite course, are attended with fever and eruptions on the skin, are more or less readily communicable from person to person, and possess the singular and important property of generally protecting persons from a second attack. They are apt to occur epidemically. Of these epidemic visitations Dr. Fair observes, that they distinguish one country from another, one year from another, have formed epochs in chronology, have decimated armies and disabled fleets, have influenced the fate of cities, nay, of empires. Section B comprises, for the most part, disorders which are apt to invade different parts of the same body simultaneously or in succession. These are sometimes spoken of as Constitutional diseases, and they often manifest a tendency to transmission by inheritance. Eruptive The Exanthemata, or eruptive fevers, may be Fevers. regarded as continued-fevers, having an eruption superadded. They have the following common characters: they arise from a specific contagious poison, between the reception of which and the occurrence of the symptoms a variable time elapses; run a definite course; are accompanied by a specific inflammation of the skin, called the eruption, which passes through a regular series of changes; affect some part of the mucous membrane as well as the skin; and, as a general rule, only attack an individual once. The true Exanthemata, including all these characteristics, are, --the small-pox, measles, and scarlet-fever; but there are other less perfect forms, as chicken-pox, nettle-rash, and rosera..