Notes on an epidemic of diphtheria / by John Forman.

Date:
[1860]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Notes on an epidemic of diphtheria / by John Forman. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    ON AN EPIDEMIC OF DIPHTHERIA. By JOHN FORMAN, M.R.C.S., FETTERCAIRN, KINCARDINESHIRE. [REPRINTED FROM THE EDINBURGH MEDICAL JOURNAL, JUNE I860.] A strong sense of the great necessity for increasing our knowledge, from every available source, with the nature, progress, and treat- ment of epidemic diseases, especially those of recent origin, has urged me to trespass the following notes of an epidemic of diphtheria, which occurred in the district where I practise, on my professional brethren. I am encouraged in this, by entertaining the hope, that any light that can be thrown upon such a malady as diphtheria, with respect either to its pathology or treatment, cannot fail just now to be of some service, as the amassing of the opinions of the greatest possible number of observers being of paramount import- ance, that proper conclusions may be attained concerning a disease which has excited strong alarm in the public mind, and found by the profession to be one of the most formidable diseases they have to encounter. This feeling induces me to add my quota to the general stock already furnished. The following notes are, in the first instance, taken from cases which occurred at a farm situated at the foot of the Grampians, in the parish of Fordoun, Kincardineshire. The farm-house, cottages, and offices, are built upon an eminence of gravel considerably above the sea-level; shelves of trap-rock appear at the surface within a few yards of the buildings; the sanitary arrangements about the premises seem faultless; and, to add to other circumstances in its favour as a healthy place of residence, a burn flows fresh and un- contaminated from the hills, in considerable volume and force, almost washing the sides of the buildings in its course. The first case occurred in August last. A. M., set. 16 years, states that he was seized on the 20th instant with violent diarrhoea, while at work gathering in the harvest-field ; the cause he assigned, was drinking very freely of cold water when in a state of profuse