Diphtheria : its nature, history, causes, prevention, and treatment on hygienic principles; with a resumé of the various theories and practices of the medical profession / By R.T. Trall.

  • Trall, R. T. (Russell Thacher), 1812-1877.
Date:
1862
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Diphtheria : its nature, history, causes, prevention, and treatment on hygienic principles; with a resumé of the various theories and practices of the medical profession / By R.T. Trall. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Gerstein Science Information Centre at the University of Toronto, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Gerstein Science Information Centre, University of Toronto.

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    general symptoms and the anatomical lesions proceed pm'i jpassu / but in almost every case that I have seen I have considered that death was the result rather of the action of the poison on the system tlian from obstruction of the larynx. In from twelve to twenty-four hours after the formation of the false membrane, we generally find the cervical glands enlarged, and in severe cases this enlargement may afford a serious obstacle to respira- tion and deglutition. Professor Alouzo Clark, M.D., of the JSTew York College of Physicians and Surgeons, in his lectures on diptheria, as published in the ]^ew York Medical Times^ distinguishes between epidemic sore throat, which has little tendency to the production of mem- brane, and true diptheria—the former being com- paratively a mild disease. The difference, however, may be more in degree than in kind. Dr. Clark, limiting the term, diptheria, to such forms of inflammation as terminate, or have in their course this membrane as a sign, thus describes the order of symptoms: As to its initiatory symptoms, they have no definite relation to the future severity of the disease or to the parts that are to be the seat of the inflammatory exu- dation. When diptheria appeared among us for the first time as a prevailing disease, the cases that I saw were almost all of them ushered in by pretty acute symptoms ; a chill, followed by a fever ; and then, in a small proportion of cases, a chill and fever alter- nating two or three times in the course of a single day. Those instances in which the chill was repeated were rare; but a very decided invasion was, in the cases that I saw, the rule in the beginning of the disease. As it went on, the symptoms of invasion were less and