Selected monographs.

Date:: 1888

Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Selected monographs. Source: Wellcome Collection.

233/440 (page 215)

whole course of tlie gut; that, of the 9 who complained of slight pain they were either not at all, or very slightly affected in 6; and that, if 2 of those in whom they were noticed in large numbers (twenty to thirty), had slight pain, 2 more of the same group had no pain at all, at any period of the disease. The concluding part of the table proves that quite as little analogy exists between the number of follicles and their degree of development. As a fitting commentary on- what I have now advanced, I find that in the only case in which considerable elevation of Peyer's glands (about half a line), and a few ulcers (not follicular) in the caecum, were observed, the bowels were obstinately constipated, the feel of the belly was natural throughout, and the abdominal pain was either exceedingly slight or absent, till within a few hours of death, having come on after the administration of a clyster, composed of equal parts of turpentine and castor- oil. These remarks are still further confirmed by a reference to the second table, in which the symptoms are considered with respect to the degree of development of the follicles. The same dependence of the intestinal lesion on local irritation, the same entire disproportion between the extent of the lesion and the intensity of the symptoms, are brought out so clearly by it as to render any further reflections needless. The utter futility of the objection founded on the possible absorp- tion or non-deposition of morbid matter, will appear from the following facts. Comparing the number of follicles with the days of death, I find that, of those belonging to the first group, one died on the 12th, another on the 13th, a third on the 14th, and a fourth on the i6th day. Of the second group, two died on the 12th, another on the 17th, and a fourth on the 36th day. Of the third, one died on the loth, one on the 14th, the other two on the 21st and 24th days. The three belonging to the fourth group died severally on the 13th, 15th, and igth; those in the fifth, on the loth, nth, and 13th, the two in the 6th and 7th, respectively on the nth and 22nd days of the fever. Thus, then, of two who die on the same day of the affection, one presents scarcely a trace of disease, another as many as thirty enlarged glands. In one who dies on the nth day, no less than forty Peyer's