Traumatic tuberculosis, pneumonia, and pleurisy / by F. Parkes Weber.

  • Frederick Parkes Weber
Date:
1910
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Licence: In copyright

Credit: Traumatic tuberculosis, pneumonia, and pleurisy / by F. Parkes Weber. 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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    happened, however, that before he left my house he was taken ill with shivering and vomiting, and he went home and straightway developed acute pneumonic tuberculosis, from which he died a few weeks later. How far that attack was connected with the examina- tion no one can tell. Injury may be mental, such as fright or shock, as well as physical. When the conditions of the body are ready for it, a small stimulus only is needed to bring about an explosion. Even the mental perturbation produced by a medical examination by two doctors might suffice. It is the spark which fires the train. One has seen cases of acute miliary tuberculosis and cases of acute meningitis which have followed fright as well as injury. With regard to trauma in its various forms, I think there is a connection between its action and the tuberculin reaction. An injury or a mental shock probably induces an auto-inoculation, and the effects are very much the same as those of an overdose of tuberculin, which we know is capable of lighting up a latent focus of tubercle into activity. Dr. Theodore Williams: I am sorry to say that it is some time since I had the pleasure of attending this Society, but I have always taken great interest in it, and I am very pleased to be present this evening to hear one of the best papers I have heard for some time. In one way I am proud of it, because it is written by my former house physician. The only fault I have to find is that it is so good a paper that it might have been divided into two, one dealing with traumatic tuberculosis and the other dealing with contusional pneumonia and pleurisy. That would have made two excellent papers and have probably evoked two very good discussions. However, we must not complain because the present paper is a very rich one. I thank the author very much for his notice of some of the cases I have mentioned at the Polyclinic from time to time, and I should like to add to them two more that really came from my late father’s note-books. It may be interesting to the members to know that the first time my attention was drawn to the subject was when I was writing a thesis for my M.D. degree at Oxford in 1869. Kecently I came across a copy of that old thesis in which I