An epidemic of follicular conjunctivitis in a Liverpool school / by K. Grossmann and M. Loewenthal.

Grossmann, Klaus

Date:: [1902?]

Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: An epidemic of follicular conjunctivitis in a Liverpool school / by K. Grossmann and M. Loewenthal. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by UCL Library Services. The original may be consulted at UCL (University College London)

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cases arc, therefore, found amongst the girls, the cases of medium severity are nearly equally distributed, whilst there is a relative as well as absolute preponderance of the worst cases amongst the boys. We cannot offer any explanation why more girls are affected than boys, and it is possible that local causes are responsible for this fact. The prevalence of the severer cases amongst the boys, however, may possibly be accounted for by the greater exposure to dust and mechanical irritation in playing and romping about in the schoolrooms. As regards the influence of age we found no difference; of 130 children in the infants' school, 72 (= 56 p.c.) were affected, with 15 medium and only one advanced case. Concerning the microscopic specimens exhibited, they con- sist of the squeezed-out contents of follicles and sections of a few of the largest follicles. The swollen and newly-formed follicles show a fair increase of leucocytes in the tissue sur- rounding them. The fibrous capsule itself is relatively poor in leucocytes. In our specimens the follicles are completely filled with leucocytes, so that nothing can be seen of the irregular large cubical cells of other authors. Regarding the epithelium we find goblet cells most plentiful, some with more than one nucleus in their cavity—evidently leucocytes that have entered. We have not found any bacillus or coccus, nor any diplo- coccus in specimens 'prepared from squeezed-out follicular contents, and stained with an alcoholic solution of methylene blue.

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