Fibrinous or membranous rhinitis and its relation to diphtheria / by H. Lambert Lack ; (communicated by Allan Macfadyen).

  • Lack, Harry Lambert, 1867-1943.
Date:
1899
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Fibrinous or membranous rhinitis and its relation to diphtheria / by H. Lambert Lack ; (communicated by Allan Macfadyen). Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    culture a pure growth of Klebs-Loffler bacilli of full viru- lence. In this case the disease lasted over four months, and for nearly a month he attended school, a month he was at home and with two other families, and two months he was in hospital. Nowhere was there another case of sore throat. Summing up these results, we find that twenty-five cases of sore throat occurred in direct connection with eleven families affected with fibrinous rhinitis. Many of these were seen by me, and presented none of the clinical symptoms of diphtheria, although from all of them the diphtheria bacillus was isolated. The other cases were all slight, and as far as the history obtained goes were not diphtheria. Also in four instances a case of fibrinous rhinitis was the apparent starting-point of the same affection in others, in one family there being three cases of it. Finally, the diphtheria bacillus was frequently found in the throats of healthy people in contact with these cases. From these results we may conclude that fibrinous rhinitis is an infectious disease, and that it has a special tendency to reproduce itself. This fact has been ex- pressly noted by Ravenel, two of whose ten cases were in sisters. Seifert, Chapin, and Abbott have recorded similar instances. Other observers have more or less incidentally mentioned that sore throats occurred in connection with these cases, and Pluder has especially dwelt on this point as proving the diphtheritic nature of the disease. He records six cases, in three of which spread of infection occurred. (i) Boy aged three, with bilateral fibrinous rhinitis and small patch on one tonsil. Had four sisters exposed to infection ; two had bilateral exudation on the tonsils, and one had angina without exudation. It is noted that in all cases general disturbance was absent. All showed virulent bacilli. (ii) Boy aged five. Had typical bilateral fibrinous rhinitis, and another two days later had hemp-seed sized