Report on the small-pox epidemic, 1871-73, as observed in Cork-Street Fever Hospital / by Thomas Wrigley Grimshaw.

  • Grimshaw, Thomas Wrigley, 1839-1900.
Date:
1873
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report on the small-pox epidemic, 1871-73, as observed in Cork-Street Fever Hospital / by Thomas Wrigley Grimshaw. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service. The original may be consulted at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service.

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    of the nose can scarcely be looked upon as a complication, althougli sometimes troublesome ulcerations followed the disease. The mouth was usually affected by the eruption, and in some cases the sores remained for a long time, seriously impeding convalescence in one case. In a girl who had a tedious convalescence, a large ulcer about three-fourths of an inch in diameter remained in the centre of the tongue for nearly three weeks, and when healed left a hard white cicatrix. The sores on the skin in this instance were un- usually slow in healing. Salivation with or without swelling of the salivary glands occurred in all the confluent, and in many discrete cases. Those cases where the swelling of these glands was con- siderable, were usually favourable in the result. In some the ears were affected by inflammation; and suppuration of the internal ear occurred, destroying the hearing, but in no case was the power of hearing lost in both ears. In most cases the ear affection came on towards the close of the acute stage of the disease, or after the acute stage had subsided, as a sequela, at the same period as boils and abscesses, which were frequent but not serious sequelte. The affections of the nervous centres were not very troublesome; as a rule the chief complications of this kind were delirium and head- ache, which were always present in the confluent cases, scarcely ever in the discrete, and seldom in the purpuric cases—the absence of delirium in the latter class was very remarkable, considering the severity of the disease. The delirium was usually not dangerous, but troublesome, the patients insisting on wandering about, but generally returning to bed quietly, Avhen ordered to do so; however,, there were several cases of a serious character, when the patients attacked their nurses and fellow-patients in a savage way. One patient succeeded in securing the door of the ward against the nurse, breaking the window-bars and sashes, and jumping from the window, all in the space of a few minutes. One night, when visiting the hospital at eleven o'clock, p.m., at the height of the epidemic, I found no less than six delirious and dangerous patients all attempt- ing to escape, attacking the nurses and porters. After an hours work, with the assistance of the apothecary, I succeeded in getting them to bed in a comparatively quiet state. Such patients were generally found to have been of intemperate habits, and generally suffered from great debility. Special complications were not com- mon. A few were attacked with cerebro-spinal meningitis, and at least two died from this affection; the cases otherwise not being severe. Stomach and bowel complications were not usually severe.
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