Disease in children : a manual for students and practitioners.

  • Carmichael, James.
Date:
1892
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Disease in children : a manual for students and practitioners. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by UCL Library Services. The original may be consulted at UCL (University College London)

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    of a gasping character, chicken-fat clots obstructing the venous° circulation, and causing death. It has been shown byMayrthat inoculation of nasal mucus propacrates the disease in a healthy person. Long ago Home, and many years subsequently Speranza, showed similar results by blood inoculation from infected patients. Whatever the nature of the contagion may be, it is very active and volatile, and present in the air of infected localities. It is also spread by fomites, but its persistency is not of so long duration as many others of the infectious diseases, such as scarlatina. The disease is infectious, not only during the febrile and desquam- ating stages, but before the eruption comes out, which accounts for the extraordinary rapidity of its spread m congregations of children. Symptoms and Course.—The incubating period has been demonstrated both by inoculation and clinical experience. Ten days is the usual time, but it may be as short as six or seven days, or as long as fourteen, but exceptionally so. The initial symptoms are those of coryza and catairh. Sometimes a rigor is present, occasionally a convulsion takes its place. The°prodormal stage lasts from three to four days, during which the coryzal symptoms become developed. The eyes are suffused, the mouth and fauces congested. The mucous surfaces of the nostrils, trachea, and bronchi are in a similar condition. The cough is dry and harsh, sometimes of a laryngeal character. When the child is old enough to tell, it complains of headache, languor, and sense of oppression over, the sternum. Pyrexia is gradually developed, and the tem- perature rises up to 102° or 104°. Vomiting sometimes occurs, but not so often as in scarlatina. It may come on at any time during the first three or four days, and not, as in scarlatina, just before the eruption comes out. The eruption appears first on the face, which is swollen and congested and charac-, teristic in appearance, the eyes being ferrety looking and the conjunctiv£e much congested. The eruption is generally seen at the same time on the neck and behind the ears, in the