Diphtheria / by William P. Northrup ; measles, scarlatina, German measles / by Theodor von Jürgensen ; ed., with additions by William P. Northrup ; authorized translation from the German, under the editorial supervision of Alfred Stengel.

  • Northrup, William P. (William Percy), 1851-
Date:
1902
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Diphtheria / by William P. Northrup ; measles, scarlatina, German measles / by Theodor von Jürgensen ; ed., with additions by William P. Northrup ; authorized translation from the German, under the editorial supervision of Alfred Stengel. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    was added to the world’s knowledge of it until the end of the Middle Ages. In the latter part of the sixteenth century and the beginning of the seventeenth, diphtheria was epidemic all over Europe, and later invaded America. It was described under a great variety of names: Morbus suffocans; Morbus strangulatorius; Garotillo; Pestilential, Malignant, and Ulcerative angina; Gangrenous ulcer, etc. By most observers the angina was regarded as a disease distinct from the laryngeal affection, and the membrane as a scar formation. Home, a Scotchman, in 1765 discarded the latter theory, and regarded the pseudomembrane as a product of thickened mucus. Though un- able to recognize the relation between the throat and laryngeal lesions, he studied carefully the symptoms of the laryngeal involvement, and classified them as belonging to a se])arate disease, to which he gave the name of croup,” from his own language. Unfortunately, he placed under this head the various conditions now recognized as false croup and laryngismus stridulus. In 1778, Samuel Bard described an epidemic which began in New York three years earlier, and from an extensive series of observations concluded that angina and crouj) were but local manifestations of the same affection. One is led to suspect, from the description of the cases included under the name of diphtheria, that other diseases, espe- cially the exanthemata, were confounded with it. In spite of similar views set forth by other writers, and notably by Jurine, of Geneva, whose work on the nature and treatment of croup won the prize offered by Napoleon in 1807, the older views of the duality of croup and pharyngeal dij)htheria continued to be generally held, and it was not until the time of Bretonneau, in 1821, that the true relations of the various manifestations were fully appreciated. Period II (1821).—In 1821, Bretonneau gave to the public two articles on a disease which he called phlegmasie diphtherclique, or in- flammation pelliculaire, presented before the Royal Academy of Medi- cine of Paris. In 1826 a further study was contributed on the same subject. The author’s conclusions were based on observations made during local epidemics and the results of autopsies, and were, in brief, as follows: That croup was but an extension of the disease known here- tofore as malignant or gangrenous angina. That the process was not a gangrenous one, the membrane not having the nature of a scar, but being made up of fibrin. The disease was regarded by the author as a distinct entity, morhide sui generis, and not to be confounded with other pseudomembranous affections or with what he called laryngismus stridulus. To this malady he gave the name of diphthe-