Disorders mistaken for hydrophobia / by Charles W. Dulles.

  • Dulles, Charles W. (Charles Winslow), 1850-1921.
Date:
1884
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Disorders mistaken for hydrophobia / by Charles W. Dulles. 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.

    11/44 (page 7)
    that of a case of hydrophobia that I cannot refrain from quoting it. “The mouth and fauces,” Dr. Prichard says, “if examined, generally present a diseased aspect. The fauces and velum pendu- lum are red, the vessels injected, covered in patclies with mucus. Tlie mouth is viscid, and the patient generally spits out a frothy slime in all directions There is an ardent thirst. In many cases the patient has an aversion to all food. The skill is clammy and cold The complexion is often flushed ; the eyes wild, glassy, with a superabundant lach- rymal secretion; the tunica conjunctiva is not unfrequently injected with blood; the patient is scarcely tolerant of light The urine is scanty and high colored The pulse is rapid and irritable.” Such are the very conditions which have been recorded of a large number of cases of so-called hydrophobia. And the similarity sug- gests more than a coincidence. In view of these facts, and of the attention which neuroses dependent upon disturbances of the intes- tinal canal are just now attracting, an interesting field for investiga- tion is presented to students of nervous diseases. II. DISORDERS OF THE RESPIRATORY APPARATUS. To a certain extent the inflammations and anginas of the fauces to which a partial reference has already been made come within this category. Next in order come inflammations of the larynx and trachea. These may, like similar conditions of the fauces and oeso- phagus, give rise to all the dysphagic symptoms of hydrophobia. To this fact may be attributed not only a great many of the notions which have been entertained in regard to the lesions of hydrophobia, but also the old ideas and definition of the term “ cynanche,” which means literally “ dog-choking.” The frequency of this coincidence led Aromatarius, in 1625, to devote a monograph to proving that hydrophobia is nothing but a contagious angina; and the histories of many reported cases of so-called hydrophobia justify this opinion ; for they have been clearly anginose, although by a strange process of inversion the striking inflammatoiy lesions which have been found in them mortem have been looked upon as effects, when, in fact, they were really causes. Yidal has given an illustration of the danger of mistaking a laryngitis for hydrophobia, which is striking enough to be repeated. He tells that in a large town where a man had recently died of rabies, another, suffering from intense angina, was brought into the hospital. The attending physician having his attention called to