Ten lectures introductory to the study of fever / by Andrew Anderson.

  • Anderson, Andrew.
Date:
MDCCCLXI [1861]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Ten lectures introductory to the study of fever / by Andrew Anderson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by King’s College London. The original may be consulted at King’s College London.

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    minous effusion: sometimes there are spots only of it on the tonsils and fauces, but in other cases a continuous layer of lymph more or less tough, adhesive, and extensive, forms a dense grey coating on the mucous membrane; and this effusion is not always confined to the mouth and throat: it some- times passes down to the larynx, and there it pro- duces the most dangerous symptoms—the tendency to death by suffocation. With the disease as I have described it there is much difficulty of swallowing; the voice is altered, the patient speaks through his nose, and is in great distress, oftentimes in restless agony. Death sometimes takes place suddenly, as we have seen occur in plague; patients having been walking about quite unconscious of danger, till suddenly seized with the intense and peculiar depression of the disease, of which very often the issue may be fatal: hence we learn this lesson, that to obviate as far as possible this risk of sudden failure of the circulation and vital power, every one under diphtheria should be confined to bed. When death takes place it arises from one of three causes— from general depression of the nervous system, as a person dies who has been bitten by a rattlesnake; from the local lesion of the throat, particularly where there is inflammation down towards the larynx—death in such a case being often produced by suffocation; or from some complication, the most familiar being inflam- mation of the lungs. In some cases we find the bronchial tubes occupied by an effusion of lymph, branching root-like into their ramifications.