Notes on the early history of diphtheria in the United States / by John C. Peters.

  • Peters, John C. (John Charles), 1819-1893.
Date:
[1876?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Notes on the early history of diphtheria in the United States / by John C. Peters. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    dee]) hollow, hoarse cough, ending in a livid strangled-like counten- ance which is soon followed by death. (Croupous diphtheria.) This disease is not often attended with that loss of strength that is usual in Scarlet and other fevers. So that many have not been confined to their beds; but have walked about the room, till within an hour or two of their death. And the complaint has often ap- peared no way dangerous, at first, to the attendants, till the sick were almost in the last agonies; though the patients themselves are gener- ally dejected and apprehensive. Some died on the 4th or 5th day; and others not till the 14th or 15th; some even later. Sometimes nature was not able to raise a fever for the expulsion of the disorder, and the sick generally died suddenly, without a sensible struggle. When the surfaces of the tonsils, after the sloughs were cast off, appeared of a very fiery-red-color there was some, or even great danger; but when they were covered with a black crust it was often a fatal omen; as also when hemorrhages followed any slight scratch. When the disease first appeared, it was treated in the usual way, (with bleeding, blistering and purgatives?) for a common angina, and no plague was more destructive. In many families, who had a great many children, all died; and generally, when the sick fell into the hands of physicians not acquainted with the peculiar malignity of the disease the result was not favorable. Depressing and evacu- ating measures, after the disease had continued sometime, were de- structive. The orifices made by the lancet in bleeding, and the ad- jacent parts were apt to become diseased. So likewise the places where blisters were applied. The ichor which issued from them corroded the parts upon which it flowed, and even slight scratches became as it were mortified. A bloody ichor continued to issue from the body long after death. Cold air was apt to produce relapses; and Peruvian Bark was useless, but gentle perspiration produced by warm sage, and other teas, or with serpentaria, as an antiseptic diaphoretic, was found use- ful; and if the disease was taken early enough it went through its course mildly, and seldom any of the more terrible symptoms ap- peared. Serpentaria was even found beneficial after serious and bad symptoms had appeared, and some recovered who seemed be- yond hope. The presence of a miliary eruption was found very salutary in this disease; and when absent, calomel, especially when joined with