Report on dermatology : syphilis and other exanthemata / by Lunsford P. Yandell.

  • Yandell, Lunsford P. (Lunsford Pitts), 1805-1878.
Date:
1877
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report on dermatology : syphilis and other exanthemata / by Lunsford P. Yandell. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    tions, not neglecting local symptoms. Quinia, iron, and heart tonics, together with baths and anointings, comprise the most promising remedies. Belladonna, either as a preventive or curative agent, is no longer thought of. As to the name and symptoms of scarlatina there is do dispute, but its contagiousness, though generally conceded, has some firm opponents. Measles, formerly denominated rubeola, and now called morbilli by many writers, is said to have been known during the fourteenth cen- tury, though its specific nature was not established till about the mid- dle of the last century. The term 7norbilli means literally “little dis- ease,” and was first employed, according to Hebra, to distinguish measles from the greater and graver disease, the plague. Measles is from the German word maser, a spot; and rubeola signifies a reddish color. By this name, in former times, several distinct diseases were called. At the present rubeola is frequently used to describe what is otherwise called rotheln, or German measles. This is an extremely insignificant malady, closely resembling milder cases of measles. Little, if any, treatment is necessary, and the prognosis is favorable. In the management of measles much improvement has been made within the last quarter of a century. Its self-limited nature, its brief duration, and its tendency toward recovery, in the great majority of cases, are now recognized facts; and it is only for the relief of symp- toms of unusual severity, or for some complication, that medical inter- ference is demanded. The patient should be allowed food and drink, hot or cold at will, and good ventilation should be secured. Variola is probably of eastern origin, and is of incalculable an- tiquity. A hundred years ago it was the most dreaded and the most fatal of diseases. At that time it was far more exceptional for persons to escape smallpox than it is now for them to contract it. It was esti- mated that from ten to twelve per cent of all the deaths then occur- ring were due to this scourge. Jenner’s great discovery, vaccination, though still violently opposed by a few medical men, has robbed the disease of much of its terror; and it is believed by some that it not only prevents smallpox, but that its influence on the race in general, by heredity, has been to diminish its virulence. Were vaccination universally performed, it is probable that total eradication oi variola would eventually be accomplished. The contagiousness of smallpox,