The homoeopathic treatment of diphtheria / by Frederick G. Snelling.

  • Snelling, Frederick G. (Frederick Greenwood), 1831-1878.
Date:
1861
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The homoeopathic treatment of diphtheria / by Frederick G. Snelling. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    hilar tissue infiltrated, thus adding materially to the embar- rassment of deglutition. In a certain proportion of cases, avc are at this time warned, by increased difficulty of breathing, attended with a peculiar croupy sound, that the diphtheritic membrane has spread to the larynx and trachea, producing a state of things which may be regarded as almost inevitably fatal, so few have been the recoveries under such circumstances. Symptoms of asphyxia soon show themselves; the countenance becomes livid and ghastly ; the skin cold and covered with petechias; and yet the little sufferer struggles on, hours after the pulse has ceased, fighting for breath, imploring to be left to die, and, in its dis- tressing restlessness, violently throwing itself about until within an hour of its death. The above description applies to the steady progress of the disease in the severest cases, and it may be taken as typical of diphtheria in its most aggravated virulence; but,in many cases, perhaps equally fatal in the end, the symptoms do not explode with such violence, or reach their acme with such rapidity On the contrary, in some instances, the throat-symptoms, never very pronounced, appear to be readily amenable to treatment, and the child seems again, in a few days, to be exempt from immediate danger. The same mildness of symptoms may, however, exist in other cases in which the amendment is falla- cious, and in which the patient, to all appearance free from risk, is suddenly seized with croupy breathing, and is, in a few hours, beyond hope. In alluding to these deceptive cases a practitioner says : I have seen them die in four hours from such sudden invasions; they may linger five or six days, with intermissions of eight or twelve hours; the croupy breathing would suddenly cease; the little sufferer would sit up, smile, eat, drink, and amuse himself. The delighted parents would point to him in admiration of your skill. The sonorous breathing, which told so plainly that death was there, had disappeared; and, off your guard, you, in general, pronounce him safe. A few hours suffices to turn this joy into mourn- ing, and the stridulous breathing returns, to end only with life. It must not, however, be imagined that diphtheria always declares itself with such fatal virulence. Happily, it is, in numerous instances, a far less formidable disease, either when mild from its commencement, or met by prompt medical treat-