Observations on certain eruptions of the skin which occur after recent operations and injuries : a thesis for the degree of M.D. in the University of Cambridge / by Edward C. Stirling.

  • Stirling, Edward Charles, 1848-1919.
Date:
1880
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Observations on certain eruptions of the skin which occur after recent operations and injuries : a thesis for the degree of M.D. in the University of Cambridge / by Edward C. Stirling. 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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    might have been lying for some time latent, and only made itself manifest in consequence of the disturbance of the system. There is, however, just as strong an ante- cedent improbability that infection should always have taken place within a limited period before the operation, as that the symptoms of fever should always appear within a limited period after, supposing operation and fever to have no relation to one another. Moreover, if the poison were imbibed into the system beforehand, it would be natural to suppose that in some cases it would have given evidence of its presence by the appearance of premonitory febrile symptoms before the operation ; but this seems not to be the case; and Mr. Marsh states* that it is the invariable custom in Great Ormond-street not to operate if there is any deviation from the normal temperature. In striking opposition to the theory that the poison can be imbibed some indefinite period previously, and remain a long time latent, until the operation, as it were, starts it into activity, we have Dr. Murchison’sf investigations as to the incubation period of scarlet fever. This authority, after a careful investigation of seventy-five cases in which the maximum limit of the latent period could be fixed, finds that this, which has been variously stated as being from two days to one month, is shorter and less variable than has been usually supposed. In none of the seventy- five cases did the incubation period exceed six days. In 73 it could not have exceeded 5 days, i) 54 ,, ,, „ 4 ,, )i 20 ,, ,, ,, 3 „ 1P. 2 » lu i) i) i) »» „ 3 „ „ 24 hours. The longest period in which the precise moment of infection could be fixed was four and a half days, lliese facts ‘ lend no support,’ says Dr. Murchison, ‘ to the state- ment that scarlet fever differs from all the other exanthe- mata in the great variation of its incubative stage.’ I take it we shall not be far wrong if we assume four to five days as being the mean incubation period of ordinary ’ Paget's Clinical Lectures, note xvii. I Transactions of the Clinical Society, vol. xi.