cks, but
without avail. He grew weaker and weaker, though his skin continued to
become red after every bath, and on the sixth day early in the morning,
when we were about changing his linen, and I was holding him sitting up
in bed, he expired in my arms. This is the only case of scarlet-fever, I
lost under hydriatic treatment; and it is yet doubtful whether it can be
considered as belonging to that disease. I have always considered it,
and continue to do so now, a case of typhus, partly communicated by the
typhoid exhalations of the other servant, and partly created in his own
body, as he complained for more than a fortnight before, of nervous and
feverish symptoms, which indicated a serious disease threatening him.
The contagion of scarlatina may have made the case more dangerous by
complicating it; but, be this as it may, it is certain that the symptoms
were such from the beginning that a cure must have appeared most
improbable at first sight to any physician of any school; and if there
was a possibility of saving his life, it could only be done by the
course I took; a course which had proved successful in several cases of
typhus I had treated before, and which looked about as bad, and even
worse than that of poor William McNought.

112. The young woman, who apparently communicated the typhoid contagion
to William, was in quite as critical a condition as her fellow-servant;
and for a while I doubted of her recovery. She continued delirious for
more than a fortnight, and there were distinct putrid symptoms, her
throat and glands ulcerating, and breaking in two places outside. For
longer than a week she had not a lucid moment, became extenuated and
powerless. We had to lift her into the baths and out; involuntary
discharges from the bowels and the bladder took place; petechiae
appeared, and every thing indicated a steady decay. Neither acids nor
chloride of lime seemed to have any effect; the only thing, which
revived her, was the tepid half-bath, of 70 deg., which she took twice a day
for about twenty minutes. She was usually carried into the bath-room
near by, and was commonly able to walk back assisted by the nurses. She
took a pack occasionally for an hour or an hour and a half, as long as a
few spots of the rash made their appearance. Her skin peeled off but
imperfectly (there was not an appearance of desquamation on the driver's
person, although he died about the tenth day after the disease had
manifested itself