Diseases of the upper respiratory tract : the nose, pharynx & larynx / by P. Watson Williams.

  • Williams, P. Watson (Patrick Watson), 1863-1938.
Date:
1898
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Diseases of the upper respiratory tract : the nose, pharynx & larynx / by P. Watson Williams. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    follows, without any of the vital viscera being affected. On dissection diffuse purulent infiltration of the deeper parts of the phaiyngeal mucosa is found. This condi- tion extends to the larynx and glands, involving secondarily other structures, and thus the clinical symptoms are accounted for. By extension to the lungs the disease may set up a low form of pneumonia or pulmonary oedema, and death often results from cardiac failure. Senator states that the disease has so far attacked perfectly healthy persons, but Lennox Browne refers to these cases as occurring in persons whose systems have become much reduced by hard work under exceedingly unfavourable sanitaiy conditions of the inspired air, as well as of the food and water supply in some instances. I have met with only one of these rapidly fatal cases. J. S., male, age fifty, was perfectly well till 11 a.m. on May 5th, when he noticed pain in the middle of the chest. At 3 p.m. he saw his doctor, who could find nothing much the matter. He had pain and difficulty in swallowing from the first. On admission to the Royal Infirmary he held his neck stiffly, the tissues behind the angle of the jaw and of the hyoid region be- ing somewhat swollen and tender. On examination there was some general hyperaemia of the fauces, pharynx, and larynx, but no cedema, and the oesophageal obstruction was evidently just below the cricoid cartilage. On May 14th five or six ounces of pus were coughed up, and he experienced great relief, but he was so excessively weak that he could hardly be induced to swallow, and in a few hours sank and died. The temperature since admission had fluctuated between 99° and 101°. The post mortem examination revealed the remains of a small sloughy abscess that had forrhed in the upper part of the oesoph- agus, but there was little to account for the extremely