Epidemic of scarlet fever at Donaldson's Hospital during the autumn and winter of 1861 / by James D. Gillespie.

  • Gillespie James D. (James Donaldson), 1824-1892.
Date:
1862
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Epidemic of scarlet fever at Donaldson's Hospital during the autumn and winter of 1861 / by James D. Gillespie. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    did not feel so well. His pulse was slow and full, sixty-four beats in the minute; his face pale and puffy, and all the morning he had been vomiting pure green bile. There was great tenderness over the liver. The urine was 1018 in density, and very considerably coagulable: He had been costive for two days, and his stomach rejected all laxatives. The symptoms ultimately yielded to blue pill and colocynth. On 4th March he was well, and the urine was free from albumen. In October 1856 three cases occurred ; two boys and a girl. The boys were taken ill on the same day, 2d October, with sick- ness, headache, slight sore throat, and high fever, and presented the white loaded tongue with enlarged papillae; one of them had a bright scarlet rash, while the other had no eruption whatever, though the other symptoms were precisely similar. The girl was seized on 4th October, had no sickness, a very slight sore throat, but a copious bright scarlet rash, and a severe eczematous affection of the ears. All the patients did well, and none of them had albuminuria. From October 1856 the hospital enjoyed complete immunity from the scourge of scarlet fever till the 6th November 1861, when the series of cases, which I shall now bring under your notice, commenced. I propose giving a short abstract of eacli case, as it appears to me, that this will be the best way of proving how materially different the epidemic as it occurred in Donaldson’s Hospital was, as regards the great majority of cases, from the ordinarily defined varieties of the disease. Case 1.— J. D., hearing boy ; admitted 6th November 1861, with sickness, fever, and slight sore throat. 7th, Fever very high; pulse 140; eruption appearing. 8tli, Mottled, brownish-red eruption ; tongue covered with a thick white crust. 9tli, Pulse 140; crust on tongue peeling off, exposing very red enlarged papillse; throat covered with aphthous patches ; at other places very red. 11th, Pulse 146 ; eruption on chest very dark. 12th, Pulse 135. 13th, Skin desquamating in small miliary particles. 14th, Swelling and pain of wrist-joints; pulse 128. 19th, Swelling of wrists gone. 25th,'“Convalescent. No albuminuria. Case 2. D. W., hearing boy; admitted 7th November. Symptoms exactly the same as the first, only milder. 14th, Pulse 110 , wrists swollen and pain- ful. 18th, Convalescent. No albuminuria. Case 3.—J. M., deaf mute girl; admitted 7th November, with slight sore throat foul tongue, headache, and high fever. 8th, Mottled, dark red eruption Jth Skin beginning to desquamate, with miliary bloody points ; fever still high 10th, Fever very high; pulse 150. 11th, Pulse 144. 12th, Pulse 132. 13th’ Pulse 108; much better, tongue very raw. 14th, Pulse 96; swelling of wrists’ No albuminuria! ^ ° t0eS' SweUing g0ne- 18th> Convalescent.’ 4-~W- A. D hearing boy; admitted 10th November, with bright and tongue very red, without aphtlue ; fever not high ; Sg^’^ethTonvI^en°f. » s]i„Sr 5''TK ?•’ hearmg. girl; admitted 15th November, with fever and of°ski'Z.V. nLWT V,.Sil,!e- „16th’,After mottling of ski,, „„ chest; p„,se 96. 18th,' CoSe^t No'ISfflK 1st