A case of rheumatic purpura : with notes / by J. Wickham Legg.
- John Wickham Legg
- Date:
- [1883]
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: A case of rheumatic purpura : with notes / by J. Wickham Legg. 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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![^Reprinted from St. Bartholomew’s Hospital Reports, VoL A CASE OF RHEUMATIC PURPURA, WITH NOTES. BY J. WICKHAM LEGG, M.D. Bv purpura we mean the ai)pearunce of numerous spontaneous luemorrhages, either under the skin or from the mucous mem- hranes; in short, the state which the old French pathologists ■would have called a htemorrhagic diathesis. I sup[)Ose no one would he inclined to maintain that this ])urpura is a pathological entity, due always to the same cause, it is seen in such a multitude of diseases, that, before dealing with the following case, it may be well to put side by side the different states in which purpura may he found, • (i.) The acute purpura which is seen in eru{)tive diseases. This proves rapidly fatal, and often ends in less than forty-eight 'hours. Sydenham noticed the luemorrhagic form of both small- .])0.K and the plague/and how fatal it was. Cornil has examined very carefully the })ustules in liEemorrhagic variola, but it can hardly be said that he has made out more than that the cor- ])uscles escape in surprising abundance into the rete mucosum ; he inclines to an escape joe?’ dia'pedeain? The cause of the infective purpura is, of course, set down by the extreme su})porters of the germ theory to the ]>resence of bacteria. Ceci even names one germ the Monas hcemorrhagicum, an organism which he has found in patients who have died from hfemorrhagic smallpox.^ It may be well not to forget in these ca.ses the influence of the high temperature. Bouchard put. a dog into a warm bath, so as to keep his temperature at 44° C., and found that he had caused ecchymoses of the tissue of the heart.^ The parenchymatous degeneration of the glands ’ Thomas Sydenham, Obs. Med. iii. 2, § 24, ed. Qreenhill, p. 128. ^ Cornil, Bulletins de la Socidtd indd. des Hdpitaux de Paris, 1879, p. 322. ® Ceci, Arch. f. exp. Path. 1881, Bd. xiii. p. 641. * Bouchard, Comptes rendus des Sdauces de la Socidtd de Biologic, 1870, p. 27. VOL. XIX. M](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b22428057_0007.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
