Memorial of the life and work of Charles Morehead ... / edited by Hermann A. Haines.

Date:
[1884]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Memorial of the life and work of Charles Morehead ... / edited by Hermann A. Haines. 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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    and it is not likely that, not working with my eyes closed, I should frequently have overlooked it, if it had come under my observation. There is a case of mine, in a girl of the Byculla Schools ”—[this is Case 35, of Caroline Smith, at page 95 of the Second Edition. The observation (which Dr. Morehead cites here from memory, not having then his book to refer to) is, “ the glands of Peyer were distinct, and there were three or four round ulcers, each the size of a split pea ; cicatrisation had commenced.”— N.C.],—“ which has been several times referred to as an instance of this oversight; it will be found that the ulcers in the small intestines were cicatrised—evidence that they were the result of some previous illness, and not of the fever from which she succumbed. But it is useful to refer to particular cases, and I do not think that we are unreasonable in demurring to the verdict that we were ignorant and careless observers, and in continuing to insist that, in our several fields of observation in India, from 1830-60, Enteric Fever was rare, and that its clinical history in India since its greatest frequency has yet to be written ; for, assuredly, during this period there has been, and there still continues to be, as I believe, much confusion and error on the subject of Fevers in India.” In a letter, dated two days subsequently. Dr. Morehead observes :—“ One further remark before leaving this sub- ject. In a prefatory note to No. 5, Medical and Physical Society's Transactions, Bombay, somewhere about 1843, I explained that it was my constant practice to examine all the organs, not only those expected to be diseased, and specially to open the entire tract of the intestinal canal, and I explain my several reasons for so acting. I men- tion this now as an additional reason for the confidence with which I maintain that I could not—except in a very occasional instance—have overlooked the existence of Peyerian ulceration in Indian fevers.” The following observations occur in a commentary upon my chapter on the True Enteric Fever of India, which Dr. Morehead most kindly sent me. I had I'emarked, “ When Dr. Morehead published the first edition of his
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