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BLACKWATER FEVER

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Originally appearing in Volume V04, Page 27 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.

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BLACKWATER

BLACKWATER See also:
FEVER (Lat. febris, connected with fervere, to burn)
FEVER , a disease occurring in tropical countries and elsewhere, which is often classed with See also:

MALARIA

malaria (q.v.). It is characterized by irregular febrile paroxysms, accompanied by rigors, bilious vomiting, See also:

JAUNDICE (Fr. jaunisse, from jaune, yellow), or IUTERUS (from its resemblance to the colour of the golden oriole, of which Pliny relates that if a jaundiced person looks upon it he recovers but the bird dies)

jaundice and haemoglobinuria (Sambon). It has a wide See also:

GEOGRAPHICAL

geographical See also:

DISTRIBUTION (Lat. distribuere, to deal out)

distribution, including tropical See also:

Africa, parts of See also:

ASIA

Asia, the See also:

West Indies, the See also:

SOUTHERN

southern See also:

UNITED

United States, and—in Europe—Greece, See also:

SICILY (Ital. Sicilia)

Sicily and See also:

SARDINIA (Gr. 'IXs'o"uva, from a fancied resemblance to a footprint in its shape, Ital. Sardegna)

Sardinia; but its range is not coextensive with malaria. Malarial parasites have occasionally been found in the See also:

BLOOD

blood. Some authorities believe it to be caused by the excessive use of See also:

QUININE

quinine, taken to combat malaria. This theory has had the support of See also:

Koch, but it is not generally accepted. If it were correct, one would expect blackwater fever to be regularly prevalent in malarial countries and to be more or less coextensive with the use of quinine, which is not at all the See also:

case. It often resembles yellow fever, but the characteristic See also:

black vomit of yellow fever rarely occurs in blackwater fever, while the black urine from which the latter derives its name is equally rare in the former. According to the See also:

MODERN

modern school of tropical parasitology, blackwater fever is neither a See also:

FORM (Lat. forma)

form of malaria nor, produced by quinine, but a specific disease due to a protozoal See also:

PARASITE (From Gr. irapa, beside, Tiros food)

parasite akin to that which causes the redwater fever of See also:

CATTLE (Norman Fr. catel, from Late Lat. capitale, wealth or property, a word applied in the feudal system to movable property and particularly to live stock, and surviving in its wider meaning as " chattel " or " chattle ")

cattle.

End of Article: BLACKWATER FEVER

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