Chorea and whooping-cough : five lectures / by Octavius Sturges.

  • Sturges, Octavius, 1833-1894.
Date:
1877
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Chorea and whooping-cough : five lectures / by Octavius Sturges. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    don two deaths from it and but one from whooping- cough, while there are now about 4,000. The first description of chorea was that of Sydenham, whose observation so far differs from our own that he speaks of it as ‘ a sort of convulsion which chiefly invades boys and girls from ten years of age to puberty, showing itself first by a certain lame- ness or rather instability of one of the legs, which the patient drags after him like a fool.’ We have to assume, therefore, in the case of whooping- cough, either that it is a modern disease, or else that its special characters of infectiousness and non-recurrence passed unrecognised through a long series of years ; while, in regard to chorea, we must suppose either that the period and manner of its attack have changed since Sydenham’s time, or else that this observer was in gross error in his description of what he saw. It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that affections of this class have be- come more prominent in our day, whether by actual increase, or because our notions alter as to the true limits of disease. To Sydenham’s description of chorea, then, must be added what he failed to see in regard to its b 2