Lectures on syphilitic osteitis and periostitis / by John Hamilton.

  • Hamilton, John, 1809-1875.
Date:
1874
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Lectures on syphilitic osteitis and periostitis / by John Hamilton. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    pathological investigation it has been thought that the bone was not affected; but I have ascertained by dissection that even in these slight cases, the periosteum will not only be found more vascular and opaque, but more adherent to the bone, which latter is also more vascular. In a more decided form, the periosteum becomes thickened and indu- rated like fibro-cartilage and quite adherent to the bone, which by swelling and increased redness shows that it had partaken in the inflammation. When this inflammation has been acute, oedema is observed, but rarely redness, and, in early syphilitic periostitis, purulent effusion between the bone and periosteum is scarcely met with. Where there is redness and pus, the disease is primary in the bone, the specific inflammation terminating in caries, or necrosis, as in the soft node. The diagnosis of periostitis is easy; pain in some part of a bone, worse at night, with shrinking tenderness on pressure. From rheumatism it is readily distinguished by the fixity and seat of the pain, and the tenderness on pressing the bone. In rheumatism the disease usually manifests itself in the joints or synovial apparatus, and the pain is erratic. This erratic character is peculiar to rheu- matism, as Chonul ascertained by an observation of 600 cases. The following is an example of periostitis, as a