Plague : how to recognise, prevent and treat plague / by James Cantlie.

  • Cantlie, James, Sir, 1851-1926.
Date:
1900
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Plague : how to recognise, prevent and treat plague / by James Cantlie. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    to be recommended, nor can excision be in any way justified. The disease is a polyadenitis, and of so extensive a nature that eradication of infected glands is an impossibility. The skin over a gland, when red and painful, may be smeared with glycerine and belladonna or poulticed to relieve pain, and when fluctuation is perceptible the abscess should be opened; but further procedure is useless. When pus is evacuated, dusting the wound with iodoform and ensuring thorough drainage are the means by which the best results are obtainable. Retentian of urine, a frequent concomitant during the delirium of plague, renders the use of the catheter imperative. Anti-plague serum.—Tlie Yersin-Calmette serum. In ]895 Yersin produced a serum for which he claimed both prophy- lactic and curative powers. His efforts in this direction con- sisted in first inoculating animals with plague cultures until they were rendered immune, and then utilising the serum ob- tained from the animal’s blood to inoculate man. The serum of the horse was employed for the purpose, the animal having become immune by repeated intravenous injections of living plague cultures. Gelatine was the medium on which Yersin grew his cultures : the gelatine cultures were mixed with bouillon and killed by heating to 58° C. The toxins in the medium are not affected by the heat, and cause, when the fluid is injected into animals, a pronounced reaction. Rabbits injected three or four times, with fifteen-day intervals, are rendered immune; and the serum of this animal injected into another rabbit within twelve hours after it has been infected with plague cuts short the disease and preserves the rabbit’s life. Clinical experience has not sustained the high opinion formed of this serum in either China or India. Calmette claims to have improved the therapeutic value of the serum, and he employed the Yersin-Calmette serum in Oporto, where he claims to have proved its value, maintaining that by its use the plague mortality can be reduced to nil. Disposal of the deaxl.—The body of a person dead of plague should be prepared for burial as soon as possible. The body .should be stripped of clothing, washed, and mopped over with a solution of 1 in 1,000 corrosive sublimate in acid solution. I’he cotlin fuight to be; of lead ; but if it consists of wood it must