Observations on certain eruptions of the skin which occur after recent operations and injuries : a thesis for the degree of M.D. in the University of Cambridge / by Edward C. Stirling.

  • Stirling, Edward Charles, 1848-1919.
Date:
1880
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Observations on certain eruptions of the skin which occur after recent operations and injuries : a thesis for the degree of M.D. in the University of Cambridge / by Edward C. Stirling. 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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    patches, vesicles, pustules, and bullae, though they may, no doubt, be of the nature of erythema also, and may then very closely simulate the rash of scarlatina.* They have been very fully described by Wilks, Henry Lee, Braidwood, Verneuil, Tremblat, and others. Though it will be im- possible to avoid some allusion to this class of cases, I desire now, as I have said, rather to confine myself to those eruptions, usually of much less grave import, and often very transient, which occur at an early period after the infliction of a wound or injury, and which have hitherto received less attention at the hands of surgeons. It is true that the eruptions occurring in pyaemia may differ only in degree from those now under consideration, which I venture to term traumatic; just as it is probable that septicaemia and pyaemia differ only in degree from simple surgical fever, each being the result of some infec- tion of the system, similar in kind, only of vastly different degree: but as we view surgical fever and pyaemia in a very different light as regards their clinical import, I do not hesitate here to draw a clear distinction between the rashes characteristic of the traumatic, as opposed to the pysemic state, and to confine myself to a consideration of the former. Assuming the case quoted above to have been pri- marily one of scarlet fever, it would not be more remark- able that this disease should occur in a person just operated on than in any other patient. For although in this par- ticular instance no source of infection could be traced, nor had there been any case in the hospital for several months (infectious cases being excluded from admission by a recent law of the institution), yet, as scattered cases are con- tinually occurring in large towns, it is quite possible, and even probable, that he might have contracted the disease from visitors to the ward, or during his visit to the College of Surgeons, and that it was a mere coincidence that it manifested itself soon after the operation. But this is not an isolated case. I hope to be able to show that the occur- rence of scarlet fever after wounds, as well as that of a * See below, iu a case reported by Mr. Harrinsou, in the British Medical Journal.