SPECIFIC FEVERS. 

 The word fever is applied to a certain group of symptoms, the
most prominent of which consists in an increased heat of the body.
Yet there are also other characteristics which are usually associated
in all of the diseases designated as fevers.

 The most common   
 characteristics are a premonitory stage (technically called the period
of incubation), during which there may be no other symptom of
disease than general lassitude and indisposition on the part of the
patient. Then follows a more or less pronounced chill, which may
be so violent as to shake the entire body of the victim, or may, on
the other hand, consist merely in a sense of coldness. With this
occurs the characteristic rise of temperature, the fever, accom­
panied by thirst, dryness of the skin, increased force and frequency
of the heart beat, and usually by pain in the head, back and limbs.

All these symptoms may occur after a wound or injury, in which
case the disease may still be called a fever—a surgical or wound
fever.

 But there are also numerous instances in which the group
of symptoms characteristic of fever occurs without any injury or
wound, indeed without any local cause in any part of the body;
these are termed the essential fevers.

 It is found, furthermore,
that while all cases of essential fever present the features already
indicated as characteristic of fever, yet they differ among themselves
as to the details of the disease: as to the duration of the premoni­
tory stage, the violence of the chill, the degree of increased body
heat, the duration of the fever, the seat of the pain, the effect upon
the various functions—heart, brain and skin, for example. Hence,
while all of these fevers have certain features in common, yet they
differ one from another in other characteristics, so that we recog­
nize numerous distinct diseases, all denominated fevers because in­
cluding a marked increase of body heat, and yet designated by
special names because evidently due to different causes.

These are the specific fevers—scarlet fever, small-pox and measles, for
example. The specific fevers are all infectious. By this statement
it is not meant that the disease is necessarily communicated from
one individual to another—for the word contagious is used to indi­
cate transmission from one person to another. When we say that
a disease is infectious, we mean that it is due to the entrance into
the body of some external agent, in some instances certainly a
minute organism.

Most of the infectious diseases are, it is true,
contagious also ; that is to say, the agents which have induced the
disease in one individual, readily escape from his body into those
persons with whom he may come in contact—as is familiarly illus­
trated to us in small­pox.

On the other hand, there are infectious
diseases—that is, diseases induced by the presence of foreign agents
(organisms) in the body, which do not seem capable of transmis- 
sion from one to another, but can be contracted only in certain
regions.

Intermittent fever, or ague, for instance, is, so far as we
know, never communicated from one person to another, but can be
acquired only in certain so-called malarial districts; yet intermit­
tent fever is eminently infectious, though not contagious.

 With regard to three of the specific fevers, it has been already demon­
strated that the cause is a microscopic organism, a plant, which
finds access to the body through the lungs or skin, and by its
growth within the human organism, occasions the derangement of
function which we know as fever.

 We have every reason to believe
that the same general cause underlies all of the specific fevers—
that each is due to a definite and special agent, and that this agent
is a vegetable organism.

It is customary to discuss the various specific fevers under
different categories. Thus, those which are distinguished by the
unbroken continuance of fever—the absence of intermission—are
designated continued fevers; such are typhus and typhoid fever.

Then, again, there are fevers distinguished by the intermittent char­
acter of the temperature—a day or two of fever being followed by
a similar period of natural body heat, that is, absence of fever.
These are known as periodical fevers, among which are intermit­
tent, remittent and yellow fevers.

Still a third class is distin­
guished by the occurrence of eruptions on the skin, and are hence
designated eruptive fevers. The most familiar examples of this
class are small­pox, scarlet fever, measles.

ERUPTIVE FEVERS. 

 Each of the eruptive fevers is characterized by the develop­
ment of a rash on the skin, by which it may be distinguished from
the other fevers of its class. There are, it is true, other features—
the duration of the incubative period, the degree of fever, the
duration of the disease, the location of the pain, etc. For con­
venience of description, it may be said in advance that the course
of any eruptive fever is best described in three periods or stages.
First, the stage of invasion, beginning with the first manifestations
of ill-health, and terminating with the first appearance of the erup- 
tion; second, the stage of eruption, which succeeds the former and
endures until the eruption disappears; third\ the stage of desqua-
mation during which the skin recovers its natural condition. In
distinguishing between the various eruptive fevers, especially in
children, it is particularly important to note the duration of the
stage of incubation and the time of the appearance of the eruption.

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