Practical observations on diphtheria and erysipelas / by Charles Bell.

  • Charles Bell
Date:
1864
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Practical observations on diphtheria and erysipelas / by Charles Bell. 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.

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    ERYSIPELAS. [JZeatZ lefore the Medico-Chirurgical Society of IldinhurgTi, April 16t7i, 1851.] If I had had any doubts of the propriety of republishing the following observations on the treatment of erysipelas, they would have been entirely removed by reading Dr. A. E. Mackay's interesting paper* on the contagiousness of the disease, in which he forcibly points out the danger arising from the admission to a ship's crew of any one whose idiosyncrasy renders him liable to an attack of erysipelas on being exposed to a comparatively trifling exciting cause. It is obvious that this circumstance might endanger a whole ship's crew, by such an individual becoming afi'ected with erysipelas, and communicating it to the shipmates. This event is rendered more likely to occur in consequence of the fact referred to by Dr. Mackay, that there is no condi- tion in life in which men are so closely packed together, and in which isolation of the sick from the healthy is at best so im- perfect, as on board a man-of-war.t Therefore, Dr. Mackay considers that no person having this unfortunate diathesis ought to be admitted as a sailor; and if it is ascertained after his admission, it should be a sufficient reason for his being discharged from the service. He supports this opinion by relating the fact, that on board the Marlborough, in 1862, when there was a crew of 1200, and although the ship was in a perfect state of cleanness, erysipelas broke out and created great anxiety among the medical officers. The disease made its first appearance on this occasion in one of the sailors who had the peculiar predisposition referred to, and it seemed to have been roused into action by an abscess in his leg. There was, at the same time, several cases of erythema and cynancbe * ' Edinburgh Medical Journal,' No. civ. t Op. cit., p. 709.
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