The typhoid condition / by J Milner Fothergill.

  • Fothergill, J. Milner (John Milner), 1841-1888.
Date:
[1873]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The typhoid condition / by J Milner Fothergill. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    tents, hypertrophy of the enclosing membrane, and degeneration of the secretion. If the cysts arose from dilatation of a single sacculus of the racemose gland, an explanation would be given of the entire absence of the black point, as also of the absence of any tendency to open externally. The photograph from which the plate has been engraved was taken in May by Mr R. Totherick, of Berwick. It represents very accurately the present appearance of the cysts. Article VI.— The Typhoid Condition. By J. Milner Fotiiergill, M.D., M.R.C.P., London. “ No blunder is more common than to misconstrue into typhoid fever a typhoid condition of the system.”—(Da Costa.) This distinct expression of opinion on the part of one so well and so favourably known in relation to medical diagnosis, will form an excuse at least for the consideration here of that condition denomi¬ nated typhoid. The condition is one with which all are only too familiar. Still, our positive knowledge of it is quite disproportioned to its importance. As to how it is originated even we are in doubt; indeed, what we know of it consists rather in what we have good reason to regard as probable than in what we can actually demon¬ strate. It is generally regarded as being due to an increased metamorphosis of blood and tissues. It is therefore a very common and almost, indeed, necessary result of continued fever. The very name suggests this. A typhoid condition is one resembling the condition of typhus fever, where this state almost invariably occurs. Previous, however, to going into the subject of the typhoid con¬ dition, it may not be undesirable to consider briefly the subject of tissue-waste or histolysis. We now know that the temperature of the body is the result of combustion within it. This combustion is maintained by the oxidation of hydro-carbons chiefly, though not entirely, for we have in urea and its allies the nitrogenized waste represented: they are really the ashes or cinders, the non¬ combustible or non-oxygenizable products of histolysis. There is every reason to suppose that the temperature is maintained by the hydro-carbons, in the form of lactic acid in union with a soda base (Headland), and that this combustion goes on chiefly, if not entirely, in the muscles. The body maintains its temperature almost entirely from the hydro-carbons assimilated from the food, the excess being stored as fat, which is deposited in the connective tissue, which, when so modified, is called adipose tissue; and there remains ready for future uses. When the amount of hydro-carbons requisite for maintaining the temperature are not supplied by food, as in starvation or in Bantingism, these stores are drawn upon, and emaciation by loss of fat results. It would appear that as the blood VOL. xix.—NO. III. 2 F