Discussion on diphtheria / John Glaister.

  • Glaister, John, 1856-1932.
Date:
[1895?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Discussion on diphtheria / John Glaister. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    Reprinted from the Glasgow Medical Journal for August, 1895.] GLASGOW MEDICO-CHIRURGICAL SOCIETY. Session 1894-95. Meeting IX—22nd March, 1895. The President, Dr. Hector C. Cameron, in the Chair. DISCUSSION ON DIPHTHERIA. Dr. GLAISTER. The discussion was resumed by Dr. Glaister, who said that, after the previous very exhaustive consideration of the subject from a bacteriological standpoint, he proposed to limit his remarks to three points—viz., the statistical, the preventive, and the narration of cases. Statistics. The earliest published cases of diphtheria treated by serum are quoted from the Deutsche Medicinische Wochenschrift, 27th April, 1893,1 and were a series of 30, by Behring and Kossel; of these, 24, or 80 per cent, recovered. On 19th April, 1894, Ehrlich, Kossel, and Wassermann. in the same journal, published the results of 220 unselected cases of diphtheria treated by serum of goats rendered immune by giving them increasing doses of dead diphtheria cultures. Among the 153 cases in which tracheotomy was not needed, the mortality was 236 per cent. Then Weibgen - Hahn's clinic in Berlin (same journal, 19th July) reported 65 cases. Certain patients of this number required tracheotomy, and of these 44 per cent recovered. Of the others, 72 per cent recovered. The type of disease was, however, benign. French Statistics.2—Before using serum the mortality from diphtheria in Parisian hospitals, according to Roux, had scarcely 1 British Medical Journal, 8th September, 1894, p. 545. 2 Cf. British Medical Journal, 27th October, 1894, p. 931.