Page:Willich, A. F. M. - The Domestic Encyclopædia (Vol. 1, 1802).djvu/44

20 ] AG U informs us, that he has obtainecl a 7)ioi dorr, or yellow dye, by making a decoction of the whole plant. , L. See Corncockle. Jgrostis Spiccvcnti, L. See Silky Bent Grass. AGUE is a general term for those fevers which have periodical Intermissions, and are specifically denominated quotidian, tertian, quartan, according to the various periods at which the febrile pa- anus. Agues are, in some degree, en- demial, or peculiar to certain situa- tions. In the county of Kent, and the fens of Lincolnshire, they have become proverbial. They frequently attack men than wonjen, the young than the old, the pSor than' the rich: sufficient reasms may easily be assigned for this pe- culiarity. The habits and empl y- inents of the male sex, especiallj at the time of youth, subject them to causes which more particularly pre- dispose them to that disease, s ch Jd moist air, wet feet, long x- posure to rain, and wet cloth:s; whereas females, and the aged of both sexes, keep more within dors. Front" this statement it. may i:a- dilv be inferred, that persons -ho reside in certain districts of a con- try, are more frequently affeied with these fevers, than those envy- ing a purer atmosphere, and iiia- biting a drier soil. That the poor are more liabl to ggues than the rich, may in sine [measure be ascribed to the alfve- mentioned causes. The difteipee •of their diet, and clothing, majidso be supposed to posses^ an ini in admitting or resisting this ditase. The symptoms generally obsrved during the cold lit in agues! are, A GU strong shiverings, succeeded by great heat, and the usual concomi- tants of fever, such as thirst, quick pulse, &c. The hot fit is termi- nated by a perspiration more or less profuse, according to the habit and constitution of the patient. Several oilier symptoms occasi- present themselves in the different stages of the disease. The cold fit is often preceded by torpor, languor, lassitude, yawning, stretch- tended with nausea, vomiting, and sometimes, in weak habits, with diarrhoea. The hot fit is ushered in with languor; a flaccid state of the whole body, but especially of the limbs ; a general sense of soreness, as if the parts were bruised; a quick pulsation of the arteries, sometimes attended with throbbings and pain in the head. The duration of the paroxysm, before it terminates in die sweating fit, is irregular in respect to time, seldom subsides in less than six hours, and never exceeds twelve. The urine which the patient evacu- ates in the last stage, commonly de- posits a reddish sediment. Dur- ing the interval of each paroxysm, the patient apparently enjoys as good a state of health, as previous to the attack of this disease, Never- s, if it be suffered to continue long, it v> eakens and exhausts the constitution, and occasions such ra- as medicine cannot easily re- producing general debility, ob- in the Viscera, jaundice, - a hail proceed to point out a few of those remedies which have been found effectual in tins disease. A tea-spoonful of powdered snake- root mixed with a glass of brandy and water, and taken before the ap- proach of the fit, keeping the body u to induce perspiration, has been