Contributions to the pathology and therapeutics of typhus fever / by Joseph Bell.

  • Joseph Bell
Date:
[1860]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Contributions to the pathology and therapeutics of typhus fever / by Joseph Bell. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    warn. _ / THE GLASGOW MEDICAL JOURNAL Vol. YIL] JANUARY, 1860. [No. 28. ORIGINAL COMMUNICATIONS. I.— Contributions to the Pathology and Therapeutics of Typhus Fever. By Joseph Bell, M.D., one of the Physicians to the Glasgow Infirmary, Ac., &c. (Read before the Glasgow Medical Society.') Preliminary Observations.—At the present day typhus is considered to be a blood disease, depending on the presence of a poison in the blood; therefore, a true Septicaemia. On this doctrine, and also from the eruption* which very gene¬ rally appears, the disease is usually classed with the exanthemata. But variola, scarlatina, and rubeola have a series of local lesions special to each ; whilst, on the other hand, many modern authori¬ ties maintain that typhus has no such peculiar local manifestation. If this opinion be correct, then typhus is not only essentially different from the exanthemata, but also from every other epidemic disease. The plague and other epidemics of bygone times had their specific local lesions. The cholera has likewise its peculiar manifestation. It is admitted that the form of fever denomi¬ nated gastro-enterite by Broussais, fievre entero-mesenterique by Serres, fievre typho’ide by Louis, dothinenterite by Bretonneau, and typhoid by British and American writers, has assigned to it a peculiar affection of the elliptical patches of the ileum usually known as Peyer’s glands; this lesion forming the basis of the modern controversy regarding the non-identity of typhus and typhoid fevers. In the present contribution it is not my intention to enter upon the consideration either of the doctrine of the blood * The late Dr. Perry of this city was, if not the first, certainly one of the earliest writers, who directed attention to this important point. 3 C