Report on a new method of treating diphtheria / by Charles Smith.

  • Smith, Charles.
Date:
1891
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report on a new method of treating diphtheria / by Charles Smith. 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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    found for this method as experience is gained; possibly even cholera, small pox, or typhoid fever may be benefited by treat- ment arranged on these lines, for although somewhat depressing, it is so in a different manner from the disease, and may, therefore, be probably used with as little risk as in diphtheria. It is certain that constitutional effects are produced by it. It may be interesting to you to learn the steps by which I arrived at my conclusions. I will, therefore, relate their history as briefly as possible. The first case treated in this manner was a boy aged nine years. When first seen, he was suffering from an attack of combined pharyngeal and laryngeal diphtheria of several days' duration. He was voiceless, breathing with difficulty, and with the usual cronpy noise, the chest falling in at each inspiration, livid around the lips and eyes, restless and tossing about, with perspiration on the face. The deposit on the pharynx was of medium extent, the laryngeal portion being the most important. I considered it a perfectly hopeless case. At this time, one child of six was lying dead in the house from the same disease, another of five had a slight pharyngeal attack, while another of two had been sent out of the house to avoid infection, but (as it proved) too late, for he was soon brought back to be under my care for the same disease. The ordinary methods of treatment were evidently useless in such a case, something decided, and even severe required to be done at once in order to give him any chance of recovery. As the chief part of the disease was laryngeal, I determined to leave the pharynx alone, and watch the effect of treatment upon the deposit there. Having recently read the Memoirs of the Kev. Sydney Smith, by his daughter Lady Holland, I still retained a lively recollection of the account there given (page 55) of the cure of an attack of croup, evidently diphtheritic, in his daughter aged 6 months, by the administration of calomel in closes amounting to thirty-two grains in twenty-four hours. I determined to use mercury freely in this case, and applied mercurial ointment in large quantity to the skin of the neck and throat j at first an ounce a clay was used, after two days about a quarter of that amount, gradually diminished. I also used borax as recommended by Hood of London, but much more freelv than he orders, a small quantity being put into his mouth every half-hour day and night for six days, afterwards, as he improved, less frequently, but continued until well. So many of