Tropical medicine, hygiene, and parasitology ; a handbook for practitioners and students.

  • Brooke, Gilbert Edward, 1873-1936.
Date:
1908
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Tropical medicine, hygiene, and parasitology ; a handbook for practitioners and students. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service. The original may be consulted at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service.

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    5. Antikito Cream. — Obtainable from Antikito Syndicfile, Ltd., Great Portland Street, London. Notes on Tropical Practice.—The practice of medicine in ivann climates is a subject which, by a Committee of the Royal College of Physicians, was only recently pronounced as being too :'.mall to merit the distinction of a special diploma. To the tropical practitioner the matter will appear far otherwise. Wot only is he surrounded from the outset by a veritable host of pathological conditions which are new to him, but he will find that :hey are often dependent on flora or fauna previously unknown, that ■.he physiological functions are all exaggerated, that the problems of ..anitation are entirely novel—in fact, that tropical medicine is the :itudy of a lifetime, the study of a thousand ptoblems of which nhe interest and far-reaching importance are incomparably greater ban are those of the well-beaten track of medicine in temjteratc illimates. Perhaps one of the first features that will strike a practitioner in iilie tropics is the fret[uent occurrence of fever. .At home he has Always been taught that fever is a symptom due either to some grave ipecific toxiemia or to some inflammatory process. Me comes iccross case after case of pyrexia ; there is no hint of anything iinflammatory. Me thinks at once of malaria, and examines the alood and gives tiuinine, without avail ; he excludes the zymotic iiliseases, and then sees that his ideas need revision, ami that he has 0 deal with a tropical febriculum—a manifestation of a strained fliysiological mechanism. Again, he visits a patient, obviously seriously ill with high fever, aboured breathing, and a bad ]nilse. Me finds some moderate ■:ireas of lung dulne.ss. The patient dies after only two days’ illness, vend he signs it up as pneumonia A few days later he is surprised o find five or six peojile in the neighbourhood seriously ill with .aigh fever, a full, fast, and low-tension pulse, an anxious expression, rmd foul tongue, lie may think of typhoid, and, in exposing the i.bdomen, discovers some tenderness in the groin leading to the lisclosure of a large bubo, and an explanation of the speedy death, ■'.n the pneumonia, which he had overlooked. Perhaps, again, he is a ship’s surgeon on a vessel carrying Coolies, i The day before entering port a sudden death occurs, and the same '.•veiling a case of bad diarrheea, which dies, after perhaps one or two loses of opium, or of chalk and bismuth. On arrival in port he veports the two deaths—one as heart failure and the other probalily diarrheea in an “opium smoker”—since the ]ialient had appeared .'ery emaciated. Me is perhaps highly disgusted to find that the doolies are cpiarantined—an action which is justified by a subsequent •mart cholera epidemic. These are but a few instances of mistaken diagnoses which would .generally be obviated by a study of tropical medicine combined vith practical experience.