Bubonic plague: its course and symptoms and means of prevention and treatment / by Dr José Verdes Montenegro ; authorised translation by W. Munro.

  • Verdes Montenegro, José, 1865-
Date:
1900
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Bubonic plague: its course and symptoms and means of prevention and treatment / by Dr José Verdes Montenegro ; authorised translation by W. Munro. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

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    pneumonia, without primary bubo in the neck.) It would be of great interest to decide this question, since it would assist in clearing up the doubts which there now are as to the possibility of infection through the air, but we have not sufficient data. It is, however, an interesting fact that the nose, far from acting as a filter which checks the virus of the plague, as it does that of tubercle, for example, is really an excellent hot-house in which it can prepare itself for its attack on the organism. Simond made a monkey breathe infected flour, but did not succeed in producing the pneu- monia of j)lague. Infection through the Digestive Tract. To form a clear idea of this, the most debated mechanism of infection, we must get rid, in the first place, of the possi- bility of a simultaneous infection by the nose. Batzaroff observed that the guinea-pigs who chewed the beetroot on which their sick companions had been feeding acquired pneumonia. In these cases the infection must be attributed to the nasal mucus which covered the snouts of these animals, since, in the first place, there appeared hypersecretion of this mucus, and afterwards infarction of the deep cervical glands and pneumonia, as in the former case. This cause of error being got rid of, which is possible by taking great care to limit the action of the infecting agent to a definite part of the digestive tube, the difficulties are so numerous that it becomes necessary to take the whole question, so to speak, en bloc, and ask if infection is possible by this way, anticipating only the possibility, admitted by all, of infection through the tonsils. Wyssokowitz, in twenty-four autopsies, was never able