Variola, vaccination, varicella, cholera, erysipelas, whooping cough, hay fever / by H. Immermann [and others] ; edited with additions by John W. Moore ; authorized translation from the German, under the editorial supervision of Alfred Stengel.

  • Immermann, H.
Date:
1902
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Variola, vaccination, varicella, cholera, erysipelas, whooping cough, hay fever / by H. Immermann [and others] ; edited with additions by John W. Moore ; authorized translation from the German, under the editorial supervision of Alfred Stengel. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    141/730 (page 131)
    else to the desired extent the serious dangers which are often present in this stage. It is for this reason that, with the greater violence of the symptoms, the deleterious result of the disease is often, in spite of all our efforts, unavoidable; and, indeed, the same remark might apply to the treatment of the local symptoms connected with the skin and mucous membranes, as to that of the general symptoms which accom- pany the disease (the fever and the other signs of blood-poisoning). For the local treatment of the smallpox exanthem on the skin, numerous methods have been proposed and employed in order to lessen, in the face, the violence of the inflammation, and, where possi- ble, to take from it its destructive character. Physicians have for this purpose opened the smallpox pustules separately and evacuated the pus, and afterward cauterized the base of the opened pustule with the silver nitrate point used in opening them. This method, practised by the early Anibian physicians, the so-called ectrotic—from h-mpmaxsiv, “ to cause a miscarriage,” “to make abortive”—treatment of the smallpox pustule, is applicable only to cases in which the pocks are few and widely separated, hence to relatively mild cases. In the cases in which the pocks stand closely crowded together, on the other hand, or in variola eonfluens espeeially, the method is entirely impi’acticable. But even in the former class of cases, the milder cases of variola vera dis- ereta, it is now generally abandoned, as its advantage is problematic and tlie whole proceeding is as tedious as it is ])ainful. Among the means which have been believed to have a specific influ- ence on the smallpox exanthem, and which have, for this reason, been employed preferably locally on the skin, is to be mentioned the quick- silver method. This method was formerly frequently applied to the skin of the face of the smallpox patient at the beginning of supjiuration, sometimes in the form of a salve and sometimes in the form of a plas- ter (Emplastr. mercuriale simplex, Emplastr. mercuriale de Vigo), the face being thus kept covered for several days. The result which was often observed was a very marked abatement in the tense and painful sensation in the skin ; apart from this, there was no result, or none worthy of note, as neither a more rapid course of the suppurative process nor a less violent character of it has been reported in the cases so treated. This method has therefore been entirely abandoned now, and it has been recognized that the analgesic peculiarities of the quicksilver application mentioned were due exclusively to the fatty and oily con- stituents, and may be brought about by the influence of a covering with these latter; this influence may be just as well secured by the applica- tion of a piece of pork rind to the skin, by the use of oily compresses.