Selected monographs.

Date:: 1888

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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Selected monographs. Source: Wellcome Collection.

222/440 (page 204)

disease is mucli more violent and fatal; and tlio fact, tliat in Glasgow, wlien tlie cases were few, the disease very mild, and the deatlis i in lo, or i in 12, tlie eruption, if present, was never observed; whereas, wh.en the cases became more numerous, the disease more malignant, and the deaths -amounted to i in 8 and i in 6^, the eruption became steadily more and more abundant. Dr. Peebles accounts for tbe scantiness of tlie eruption in Edinburgli, at the time lie made bis observations, by typhus not being epidemic. Dr. Hender- son states the deatlis among those with abundant eruption as I in 5 ; among tliose witb scanty eruption as i in 8*3. Two of the three fatal cases in tbe latter . class presented extensive visceral disease of long standing; while not one of the thirteen in the former class bad any such disease. The duration of the cases was, on an average, between two .and tbree days longer in the one than the other. My own observations, likewise, show the relation between the abun- dance of the eruption, and the severity of the disease. The •eruption was : Cases. Deatlis. Rate of mortality, ^ . (Universally in . 96 19 i in 5 [partially in . 32 5 i in 6-4 Scanty . • n i in 11 The dark tint of tlie eruption is noted as ominous by all .authors. The quotations I have given above prove the general opinion; and I may likewise refer to most of the -authors cited by Dr. West, and Gauthier do Claubry, to Dr. Tweedie (p. 73), and Dr. Henderson (p. 12). The •existence of a mortality in those with dark, three times greater than in those with light-coloured eruption, in the tables I have presented above, shows in the clearest manner the truth of these opinions, and venders needless any further -comment. This fact ascertained, we cease to wonder at Yalleix's sweeping conclusions, drawn from six cases, five of which were fatal. Typhoid fever has also its eruption,—a circumstance much insisted on by Gauthier de Claubry in proof of its identity with typhus. It is generally agreed (Chomel, Louis, Gauthier ! 1 In this one case tlic eruption was potecliial, and, on inspection, I found disease of old standing, and aneurismal dilatation of the aorta.