Thomas Beddoes to Samuel Foart Simmons, Editor of Medical Facts and Observations, 7 March 1795
I do not know whether it is the prevailing opinion among medical philosophers, that Dr. Cullen was mistaken in referring the origin of intermittent fevers to effluvia from marshes exclusively. Many physicians believe that they may be excited by other causes; and of this there seems to me to exist in different books such satisfactory evidence, that I should not consider the following cases as worth recording, if the circumstances had not been somewhat peculiar, and at the same time perfectly distinct.
On February 2, 1795, I ordered the first medicines for Miss Sweeting. On the 25th of January, in the evening, she had been chilled in going home; she was unwell the next day, and for several days preceding the 2d of February, had had a daily cold paroxysm, followed by heat and copious perspiration.
I saw her one day in the cold stage of her paroxysm, and it was impossible to imagine more distinct shuddering and shaking. In the interval she was lively, and had no complaint; but she was beginning to lose her healthy look. Her complaint was easily removed; on the 18th of February, however, she was threatened, with a relapse, and on the 19th had a slight; paroxysm; but her former medicines at once put an end to the disease.She lived in Rodney Place, and had not been in the valley for a long time. She was at Bristol just a week before the evening she was chilled, but in the intermediate time, had never once been off Clifton Hill.
February 4, I was desired to see Mr. Thomason; he lived at the Hotwells, near the river. I found him in the hot stage of his paroxysm; this was succeeded by a profuse diaphoresis, and that by a complete intermission, The bark freely taken, with some additions, prevented any return of his fever. About a week before I saw him, Mr. T. had been making some magnetical experiments in a large cold room, during which he had felt uncomfortably chilled; the following day he shivered and felt feverish at times, and he had not been free from these feelings for twenty-four hours together, till his complaint was cured by the medicines I have mentioned.
Mrs. ----- had closely attended a sick relation at the Hotwells. In the beginning of February she changed her lodgings; the room in which she sat the first day after her removal had been lately washed, and was still damp; she felt indisposed before bed-time. On the morning of the third day I saw her, she had been chilly, was now in the hot stage of a febrile paroxysm, and afterwards fell into an excessive perspiration; she had then a perfect intermission, and took medicines similar to those above mentioned. She seemed recovering as usual, when she imprudently took a cathartic medicine, which operated with great violence. Her fever now returned; it assumed the form of a tertian, and proved very obstinate.
In these cases, where the disorder came on during a severe frost, it is impossible to think of marsh miasmata. Indeed, the feelings and observations of each patient so clearly point out the time and manner in which the disorder took place, that I presume no doubt can remain when both circumstances are considered.
Opportunities of making observations in physic, superior to all cavil, occur so seldom, that thought the present ought not to be neglected.
Clifton,
March 7. 1795
Published: as ‘Facts relative to the Origin of intermittent Fevers. Communicated in a Letter to Dr. Simmons, by Thomas Beddoes, M. D.’, Medical Facts and Observations, 7 (1797), 26–29.