Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume VII.djvu/172

 164 FEVER BUSH FEVERS is intense in proportion to the increase of the heat of the body, as determined by the ther- mometer. The range of the morbid rise is from 99 to 110. Moreover, the temperature both in symptomatic fever and in the fevers is a criterion of the immediate danger to life. A temperature above 105, if persisting, always denotes great gravity, and death is imminent if the temperature remains for any length of time above that point. The increase of heat is in part due to a morbid activity in the mo- lecular changes incident to disintegration of tis- sue, but our existing knowledge does not enable the pathologist to give a full explanation of the rationale of fever. At present it is an unset- tled pathological question to what extent the increase of heat is causative of the various morbid phenomena which are presented in connection with symptomatic and essential fever. This question is important as bearing on the employment of drugs and other mea- sures of treatment with a view to dimin- ish the heat of the body. There are cer- tain remedies which from their effect upon temperature are called antipyretics ; such are quinia in full doses, digitalis, veratrum mri- de, &c. The most potent measure for dimin- ishing temperature, however, is the employ- ment of water externally, either in the form of the shower or plunge bath, the douche, the wet sheet, or by sponging the surface of the body. Drinking freely of cold water also has this effect. Antipyretic treatment has recently en- tered more largely into medical practice than formerly, from more attention having been given to the study of animal heat in different diseases by means of the thermometer. FEVER BCSH (benzoin odoriferum, Nees), a shrub from 4 to 10 ft. high, with long, slender, and brittle branches, common in the northern Fever Bush (Benzoin odoriferum). United States, and remarkable for its graceful form and large handsome leaves, especially when it grows upon the margin of some cold, swampy place in the deep shade of woods. Here it produces an abundance of flowers and fruit. The flowers appear in April or May in clusters from three to six in number, are of a greenish yellow color, and come out where the last year's leaves were. The fruit is a small, oval, dark red or purple drupe, in bunches of two to five. The twigs or young branches are smooth and of a bright green, which assumes an olive tint the next year, and afterward a pearly gray. A decoction of the twigs is used to alleviate the itching from poisoning by su- mach. According to Dr. Darlington, it is also used as a medicine for cattle in the spring. The berries have a pleasant, spicy taste, and have sometimes been used as allspice. FEVERS, or Pyrexiw, diseases characterized by a morbid increase of animal heat not refer- able to any local affection ; that is, diseases in which the febrile state is idiopathic or essen- tial. (See FEVEE.) A fever lasting but a single day in some cases, or continuing for a few days in other cases, is called ephemeral fever or a febricula. It is without danger, as a rule, and calls for only palliative treat- ment. Exclusive of this form of fever, the dif- ferent fevers are classified as follows: 1. Fe- vers characterized by periodical intermissions or marked remissions. This class is distinguished as periodical, or, from their causation, malarial fevers. Intermittent fever and remittent fever are embraced under these names, and yellow fever is generally included in this class. 2. Fevers which, in contrast with the foregoing, are characterized by a continuous febrile state, are called continued fevers. The fevers so classified are typhus and typhoid fever, relaps- ing fever, and erysipelatous fever. 3. Fevers in which an eruption on the skin is a promi- nent and a pretty constant feature are dis- tinguished as eruptive fevers, namely, small- pox, chicken pox, scarlet fever, and measles. To this list may be added the disease known as the plague. Other diseases which are essential- ly fevers are not always nosologically so classi- fied. Examples of this kind are insolation or sunstroke, cerebro-spinal meningitis, influenza, and diphtheria. I. PERIODICAL FEVERS. 1. In- termittent and Remittent Fevers. The period- ical fevers of malarial origin manifest this re- markable peculiarity : Intermissions or remis- sions recur at regular intervals, following a law of periodicity. This is especially marked in in- termittent fever, called also fever and ague, chills and fever, and various other names. This law of periodicity varies, giving rise to what are known as the different types of an intermittent fever. The regular or simple types are as fol- lows :, the quotidian type, in which a par- oxysm of fever recurs on each successive day ; 5, the tertian type, in which the paroxysms recur on every other or every third day ; c, the quartan type, in which two days elapse be- tween the paroxysms, that is, in which they recur on the fourth day, dating from the com- mencement of one to the commencement of