An oration on the classification and nomenclature of diseases, with remarks on diseases due to treatment / by H.D. Rolleston, M.D., F.R.C.P., senior physician to St. George's Hospital; physician, Victoria Hospital for Children.

  • Rolleston, Humphry Davy, Sir, 1862-1944
Date:
[1909]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: An oration on the classification and nomenclature of diseases, with remarks on diseases due to treatment / by H.D. Rolleston, M.D., F.R.C.P., senior physician to St. George's Hospital; physician, Victoria Hospital for Children. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    weeks there is an “immediate reaction,” the symptoms of serum disease (rash, &c.) appearing within a few minutes to 24 hours instead of from seven to 12 days as after a single injection. IE the interval between the two injections is longer, three months or so, there is an “accelerated reaction ” which appears in five or six days. From the large amount of material under their observation Currie20 and Goodall21 have collected a considerable number of these reactions, but fortunately it does not appear that the results in man are likely to prove fatal or that they are so severe as in experi¬ mental guinea-pigs. The importance of anaphylaxis or hyper-sensitiveness is far reaching, for it occurs in connexion with injection of vaccines and is thus the important factor underlying the positive reaction in the various tuberculin tests. In addition, the peculiar symptoms produced in some persons by eggs and usually ascribed to idiosyncrasy are probably examples of anaphylaxis, and it has been suggested that some cases of puerperal eclampsia are of this nature and due to the absorption of the products of autolysis of the placenta. Whatever the effect on my audience I have not exhausted the subject of the diseases and morbid conditions directly due to treatment, nor is it necessary to attempt to do so, for probably we all make a practice, not only of estimating any good that may have followed our treatment, but also of closely considering what bad results may possibly be due to our active interference. 20 Currie : Journal of Hygiene, 1907, vol. vii.» p.J35. 21 Goodall, ibid, p. 607.