The former takes notice only of fatal coughing of
blood; the latter, besides this, notices epistaxis, hematuria, and
fluxes of blood from the bowels, as symptoms of such decided and
speedy mortality, that those patients in whom they were observed
usually died on the same or the following day.
That a vomiting of blood may not, here and there, have taken
place, perhaps have been even prevalent in many places, is, from a
consideration of the nature of the disease, by no means to be
denied; for every putrid decomposition of the fluids begets a
tendency to hemorrhages of all kinds. Here, however, it is a
question of historical certainty, which, after these doubts, is by
no means established. Had not so speedy a death followed the
expectoration of blood, we should certainly have received more
detailed intelligence respecting other hemorrhages; but the malady
had no time to extend its effects further over the extremities of
the vessels. After its first fury, however, was spent, the
pestilence passed into the usual febrile form of the oriental
plague. Internal carbuncular inflammations no longer took place,
and hemorrhages became phenomena, no more essential in this than
they are in any other febrile disorders.
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