On the wasting diseases of infants and children / by Eustace Smith.

  • Smith, Eustace, 1835-1914.
Date:
1868
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the wasting diseases of infants and children / by Eustace Smith. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University.

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    increasing weakness, and all the signs of exhaustion. In a certain proportion of cases rupture of the lung takes place, producing pneumo-thorax : this is seldom recovered from. Causes.—Of the causes of pulmonary phthisis, so far as that is the result of tubercle of the lung, nothing need be added to what has already been stated with regard to tuberculosis. Scrofulous pneumonia may, however, arise quite independently of any of the causes there mentioned. Inflammation of the lung occurring in an unhealthy child is seldom simple. The deposit, instead of becoming absorbed, is apt to remain for a considerable time, then slowly to degenerate, and to cause ulceration and cavities, which spread until the whole lung, or the greater part of it, is rendered useless. Besides this there is, however, another means by which the same pathological condition may be set up. According to Dr. Andrew Clark,* certain dead animal products inserted beneath the skin of a rabbit will produce deposits, first in the lungs, and afterwards in other parts of the body. When the animal is healthy these become ab- sorbed : when lie is unhealthy, or being healthy is kept in conditions unfavourable to health, the deposits are not absorbed, but excite secondary deposits in other parts. The same thing will occur in the human subject: portions of septic matter, from whatever source, retained in contact with a living surface may become absorbed, and may give rise to secondary deposits in the lungs, to ulceration in the bowels, to clottings in vessels, and to poisoning of the blood. f Dr. Clark has shown that enlarged tonsils which retain their secretions are apt to become loaded with an . offensive cheesy matter in a state of disintegration, and to give rise to a curdy, purulent discharge, streaked with blood. In the paper just referred to, Dr. Clark describes a case in which such tonsils were, with an orchitis, the pro- * Lectures delivered at the Royal College of Physicians, 1866. + See a paper by Dr. A. Clark, in the Medical Times and Gazette, May 23, 1868.