† ˈpurple ˈfever Obs.
An old name for purpura; but also applied vaguely to other fevers attended with purplish cutaneous eruptions.
| 1626 Bacon Sylva §804 The Lesser Infections, of the small Pocks, Purple Feavers, Agues, in the summer Precedent, and hovering all winter, do portend a great Pestilence in the summer following. 1666 Lond. Gaz. No. 61/2 We are in..great fear of the Plague, several persons being lately dead of a very malignant Purple-Feavor. 1728–41 Chambers Cycl. s.v. Purple, The purple fever..is a kind of plague, or a malignant fever discovering itself in eruptions on the skin like the bites of bugs or fleas, or like grains of millet, or the small-pox; whence it is sometimes also called the spotted and miliary fever. Ibid. s.v. Fever, Eruptive Fevers are..attended with cutaneous eruptions. Such are those of the small-pox, meazles, the petechial, the purple or scarlet fever, and the miliary fever. 1890 Billings Nat. Med. Dict., Purple fever, cerebro-spinal fever. |