INTO

THE CAUSES, NATURE, AND TREATMENT

OF

THE MORE PREVALENT

DISEASES OF INDIA,

AND OF

WARM CLIMATES GENERALLY.

BY

SIR JAMES ANNESLEY, KNT., F.R.S., F.S.A.,

FELLOW OF THE ROYAL COLLEGE OF SURGEONS OF ENGLAND, LATE
SURGEON TO THE MADRAS GENERAL HOSPITAL, ETC.

TO WHICH IS PREFIXED

A MEMOIR OF THE AUTHOR,

BY

THOMAS J. PETTIGREW, F.R.S., F.S.A.,

FELLOW OF THE ROYAL COLLEGE OF SURGEONS OF ENGLAND, DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
OF THE UNIVERSITY OF GÖTTINGEN, ETC. ETC.

THIRD EDITION.

LONDON:

LONGMAN, BROWN, GREEN, AND LONGMANS.

151. a. 2.

PREFACE.

DURING the greater part of thirty-seven years' practice I have had the good fortune of enjoying unusual opportunities of acquiring professional experience in various parts of India,— under all circumstances and situations of intertropical service, -in charge of large general hospitals at fixed stations,-in field hospitals on actual service,-in regimental hospitals, moving over various countries, and through different climates,amongst Europeans, as well as natives,—and among men, women, and children,-in all classes of the community, public and private. I have taken extended notes of the symptoms, progress, and treatment of all diseases which have come under my care, sedulously watched their progress throughout, comparing the symptoms while living, with the appearances after death, and noticing any omission that appeared to have been made in course of treatment, with a view of correcting it on any future occasion. I have followed this system throughout my long period of service, and it has given me facilities of marking differences in cases, and detecting symptoms which would otherwise have been obscure. Having found this system so extremely valuable to me in my practice, I earnestly recommend its adoption to the profession in general; while I feel it a duty on my part to submit the result of my experience and observations, not only to my professional brethren, but to the service in general in which I have passed the best part of my life, and for the credit and welfare of which I must ever feel the warmest interest.

In India the medical practitioner has every possible opportunity of investigating disease by post mortem examinations,

and of connecting the symptoms and treatment with those morbid changes which take place in its course; but the difficulty of describing morbid structures and the impossibility of preserving the natural appearances in the way morbid preparations are usually made, led me to cause drawings to be executed of the more interesting and remarkable changes produced upon the internal organs by the diseases I was called upon to treat. Circumstances placed in my power the means of accomplishing this object, and I trust that I have fully availed myself of them. Post mortem examinations necessarily take place in warm climates soon after death, and before the capillary circulation in the internal organs has undergone that change which is experienced after a few hours, or before the blood has returned from the minute arteries into the venous trunks. Thus, the warmth of the climate has indirectly enabled me to give a more correct delineation of the appearances of diseased structure than could otherwise have been obtained; and the drawings have all been made under my own eye and coloured from the recent subject. The knowledge thus unfolded induced me to follow up the indications to which it pointed; and as an early examination of the subject of disease after death appeared necessary to accurate ideas, as to the more minute changes and finer shades of disorder impressed upon the different internal viscera during life, it was never neglected when it could be practised with propriety.

The previous edition was published in 1828, in two large quarto volumes, accompanied by 40 plates representing the drawings above noticed, accurately coloured, and exhibiting all the morbid appearances common to the diseases of India. The great expense necessarily attendant upon this work was liberally defrayed by the Honourable the Court of Directors of the East India Company; and my highest ambition, and my most anxious hope has been, that this work might prove useful to their service in India, and to intertropical practitioners generally, and thus be deserving of the high patronage and liberality of the Court.