On the treatment of scarlet fever and measles, with sesqui-carbonate of ammonia / by Thomas J. Graham, M.D.

  • Graham, Thomas John, 1795?-1876.
Date:
1861
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the treatment of scarlet fever and measles, with sesqui-carbonate of ammonia / by Thomas J. Graham, M.D. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    of Practical Medicine, vol. i. p. 157) the following appalling facts, wliich we may udduco in proof of that round of ignorance, error and prejudice in which we scora always, more or less, to live. A man was received into St. Thomas's Hospital with the eruption out upon him, and attention was alone paid to the state of his bowels. In a few hours the right lower extremity mortified from the heel to the hip, and it is unnecessary to state that he died.—A child, about foiu- years of age, was seized with scarlet fever. The disease was not interfered with, but permitted to run its course without the aid of medicine. On the decline of the eruption, a discharge took place from the nostrils, the inflamed-, lip,, b^pame gangrenous, and the child died in consequence.''. 1- ivji. , How often, alas 1 has this teiiible fever carried mourning and woe, not only among the poor, but into the fairest and best of families, sweeping oft three or four out of five or six children, some- times even more ; it is therefore desirable to spread to the utmost the knowledge of the efficacy of this medicine, and to call upon the profession to extend to it a greater measure of confidence, and a fairer trial, than it has yet received from them. The preventible mortality in this country amounts to 90,000 lives a year; the deaths by scarlatina and measles alone during 1856, in England and Wales, were 21,280; these are not, as some imagine, e\dl things in the course of nature which we cannot reasonably hope to remove, or greatly to lessen. A beneficent Providence has provided means for their reduction, but om* ignorance, indolence and inattention, or our prejudices and prepossessions, sadly interfere with their right use and application; and the mortality just noticed is one of the fearful consequences which necessarily flow from the neglect of the beneficent laws of God in natui-e, and from inattention to well-authenticated facts^ifftrfy, ■ No acids or acid drinks should on any account be allowed while taking the ammonia, but the patient may drink at pleasure of thin barley water, toast and water, or water. The usual dose for children of ten years old is about five grains in a table-spoonful of water, sweetened with a little syrup, and repeated every three or four hoiirs; but in the severer cases it may be given every hour or two, until a remission of the worst symptoms is visible; and in the case of adults, it may be increased to ten or even twelve grains at a dose in exti'eme cases. The mildness of the fever being no security against very trouble- some, and even fatal, sequelce, the administration of ammonia should never be neglected in these diseases, how mild soever they may be in the commencement. There seems to be always a septic tendency induced in the whole system, by a depraved and poisoned state of the circulating fluids, against the possible consequences of which we ought to guard by the use of the volatile alkali. x\jid I beg leave in the strongest manner to press this on the attention of the junior members of the profession, for however eflicacious ammonia may be in holding the fibrine of the blood in solution,