Croup; its history, nature, and treatment. Fiske fund prize dissertation of the Rhode Island Medical Society.

  • Newman, Albert.
Date:
1855
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Croup; its history, nature, and treatment. Fiske fund prize dissertation of the Rhode Island Medical Society. 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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    c r o u p: ITS HISTORY, NATURE, AND TREATMENT. The disease usually designated by the term croup is confined almost entirely to infancy and childhood, though a considerable number of cases have been recorded as occurring in adults, and presenting all the essential symptoms of the disease, including the formation of false membrane in the air passages. By reference to the eleventh report to the Legislature of Massachusetts, re- lating to the registry of births, marriages, and deaths in that State, for the year ending December 31, 1852, we find that 429 deaths occurred from croup, during the year, in that State. Of these, 71 were between the ages of five and ten, and one upwards of twenty years old. The remaining 357 were under five. 243 were boys, and 178 girls.1 They were scattered very regularly all over the State, 316 occurring in the nine eastern, and 113 in the five western counties. The annual average of four years, ending December 31, 1852, from the same cause, was 367. The whole number of deaths from croup, occurring in the State during eleven years and eight months, ending December 31, 1852, amounted to 3,000. According to the same report, which probably contains as reliable information upon this point as any statistics yet published, we find that of 6,914 children which died under five years of age, during the year 1852, 351, or over five per cent., died of croup. From such statistics it appears that croup is one of the most fatal and fre- quent diseases of childhood. It is hardly possible to doubt that this disease has existed from the earliest ages, though confounded by the ancients with other diseases affecting the throat and air-passages.9 It was first described as a distinct disease by Dr. Blair, in 1718; yet extremely accurate and vivid descriptions of the disease are found in the writings of Hippocrates, Celsus, Galen, and their successors, though masked by the absurd pathology of their time. It was not, however, till after the publication of the essay of Dr. Home, of Edinburgh, in 1765, that it came to be recognized as a specific disease. In 1807, the Emperor Napoleon proposed a prize for the best essay on croup, in consequence of the death of his nephew, his then contemplated suc- cessor to the throne of France. This called forth numerous productions. ' The sex of 8 was not reported.