Intra-venous injections in blackwater fever / by H.E.B. Bruce-Porter.

  • Bruce-Porter, H.E.B.
Date:
1914
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Intra-venous injections in blackwater fever / by H.E.B. Bruce-Porter. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

    9/12 (page 7)
    November 27th.—Estimation of Red and White Cells. Red cells .... 3,420,000 per c.mm. . White cells - - - 7.900 „ Haemoglobin - 77 per cent. For the last fourteen days the urine was quite normal. I obtained from the patient the names of the places he had visited in Southern Nigeria, where there had been cases of blackwater fever, and his report was as follows:— No. of cases of blackwater District visited by me. Year. fever to my knowledge. ®Ibadan-Oyo - sIbadan-Oyo - Ogoja Ogoja 1906 ... 3 April and May 1913 - 1 1911 ... 2 September to November 1912 - - - Nil to my knowledge. * Between 1906 and 1913 I was not in this district. I recollect being bitten on several occasions by tsetse fly in the Ibadan- Oyo district, where these flies are numerous, especially north-west of Oyo. Many tsetse are also found in the Ogoto district. (Signed) A. H. W. H. Major H. always slept under a mosquito net at night, and is positive he was not bitten by mosquitos, but while big game shooting during the daytime, in May, he was bitten by tsetse fly. There may be some infection carried by this fly causing blackwater fever, for I feel convinced that in this case malaria will not explain the attack. He had been free for three years, and the blood not only failed to show the malarial parasite, but there was also an absence of the large mononuclear increase met with in chronic malaria. I think it would be of interest, and might throw light on the origin of blackwater fever, if those who come across this disease would ask the patients, whether the tsetse fly had been abundant in the area in which they had been a few months before the onset of the attack. In conclusion, while realizing to the full the help of the exceptional care given to Major H. by Dr. H. R. Moxon, Sister Agnes, and the nurses of King Edward VII.’s Hospital for Officers, I feel convinced that but for the intravenous injections he would have died. I am indebted to Dr. Harold Spitta for the reports on the urine and the blood.