Report of Dr. George Turner's experience of diphtheria, especially in its relations to lower animals, partly obtained in the course of inspections made for the [Local Government] Board in 1886 / [George Turner].

  • Turner, George, Dr.
Date:
1887
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report of Dr. George Turner's experience of diphtheria, especially in its relations to lower animals, partly obtained in the course of inspections made for the [Local Government] Board in 1886 / [George Turner]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    OFFICIAL COPY. Report of Dr. George Turner’s Experience of Diphtheria, especially in its relations to Lower Animals, partly , obtained in the course of Inspections made for t'h.&Jrx'tf/ S(W't7i77imABoa,Y& in 1886. George Buchanan, Medical Department, July 2nd, 1887. Almost nothing is with certainty known of the beginnings of diphtheria, though much has been learned respecting conditions favouring its spread and something, perhaps, of influences fostering its virulence. The earliest cases in an epidemic of diphtheria are frequently very mild, and thus easily escape, recognition. The first persons to die (almost invari¬ ably children) are generally supposed to have suffered from “ croup,” and very likely at commencement of an epidemic diphtheria may be mainly a local disease, killing rather by suffocation than by general “ blood poisoning.” In villages and towns diphtheria beginning in the above fashion is, without question, often subsequently propagated by personal communication, especially by association of children in school. And, seemingly, at school slight cases of diphtheria and cases that are convalescent get opportunity for passing on the malady, with great addition of intensity, to other persons. It has been found, too, that when a school has been closed on account of prevalence of diphtheria among the scholars, the disease sometimes recurs again and again after re-opening of the school, as a result of the premature return there of children convalescent or seemingly quite recovered of their illness. Convales¬ cent children do not seem to do much harm in their own families, but as soon as a few of them congregate in school the diphtheria is apt to re-appear with all its old severity. Of other influences tending to enhance severity of diph¬ theria, unwholesome circumstances of dwellings have been thought of as especially potent. Thus overcrowding, badly-trapped drains, and damp walls and floors have been cited as influencing the course of attacks of the disease unfavourably. In my own experience saturation of the soil under the dwelling with foecal matter, or with water contaminated by excrement, has appeared a condition especially favourable to development of diphtheria in its most fatal forms. But cases of diphtheria occur for which neither personal communication nor any of the above conditions can be assigned as probable causes. It is of these that I desire more particularly to speak. They are cases especially difficult to account for, from the very fact that they are confined to one or two families, and we cannot compare the daily life of those who escape and of those who are attacked to see in what respect their lives have differed, and so arrive at the cause of the mischief. Still an attempt at this may be made by comparing a number of isolated cases. LONDON: PRINTED FOR HER MAJESTY’S STATIONERY OFFICE, BY EYRE AND SPOTT1SWOODE, PRINTERS TO THE QUEEN’S MOST EXCELLENT MAJESTY. And to be purchased, either directly or through any Bookseller, from EYRE and SPOTTISWOODE, East Harding Street, Fleet Street, E.C.; or ADAM and CHARLES BLACK, 6, North Bridge, Edinburgh ; or HODGES, FIGGIS, & Co., 104, Grafton Street, Dudlin. • - < ■ y— *'■'*1 LIBRARY No. 16. 1887. Price Twopence. ^ General Collection* f +p