Selected monographs.

Date:: 1888

Credit: Selected monographs. Source: Wellcome Collection.

236/440 (page 218)

$and were sent from Linlitligow. If, then, dotliinonteritis is the same disease, and dejoends on tlie same causes, as typhus, how does it happen that the former is produced at Linlithgow and at Anstruther, and not in Edinburgh, where the latter is constantly occurring, and where so many circumstances favorable, not only to its production, but (by the hypothesis) likewise to that of dothinenteritis, are always at work. The duration of these cases is also remarkable. The one, it appears, had been four, the other five, weeks ill. One of them had convalesced, but had a relapse, of which he died; and, on dissection, the intestinal follicles and mesenteric glands were the only parts diseased, so that the relapse cannot be referred to any lesion of any other organ. It is further remarkable that the aggregate glands were in a state of advanced ulceration, while most of the solitary glands -around them were quite entire. In the remaining 31 cases— Peyer's glands were distinctly elevated, but not ulcerated, in . 4 „ „ visible, but not elevated, in . .9 „ „ scarcely visible in . . .7 „ „ not visible in . . . .11 31 The solitary glands were slightly developed in two of the ^ibove cases. The mesenteric glands were healthy in 25, slightly enlarged in 4, considerably enlarged and softened in I, and in a 6th increased in size, and partially converted into chalky matter. Dr. Reid also informed me that, in a man who died lately of the effects of compound fracture, Peyer's glands were more distinctly diseased than in any case of typhus he had met with. Having thus entered pretty minutely into the pathological anatomy of typhus, I put it to every one who has ever seen the two diseases, or read the descriptions given by the best authors, of the lesions so constantly observed in typhoid fever, whether those found in the former disease can with any truth be called perfectly identical with those of the latter. That the existence of trifling intestinal disease in typhus attests its general family resemblance to typhoid fever, as the presence of organs in a rudimentaiy state shows the analogy subsisting between individuals of different species$

Selected monographs.

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