A text-book of medicine : for students and practitioners / by Adolf Strümpell ; translated by permission from the 2nd and 3rd German editions by Herman F. Vickery and Philip Coombs Knapp ; with editorial notes by Frederick C. Shattuck.
- Date:
- 1887
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: A text-book of medicine : for students and practitioners / by Adolf Strümpell ; translated by permission from the 2nd and 3rd German editions by Herman F. Vickery and Philip Coombs Knapp ; with editorial notes by Frederick C. Shattuck. 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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![[This injunction is rather extreme. Nephritis is as likely to follow a mild as a severe case, and occurs sometimes in spite of every precaution. The physician should use his discretion as to the length of time the patient is kept in bed, care- fully guarding against exposure to cold and imprudence in diet.] The disease is so dangerous that, whenever a case occurs in a family, isolation is absolutely demanded, and, if possible, all the other children should be sent away. If this advice be disregarded, we can reject all responsibility for any further cases and their results. [Scarlet fever is a disease at once so highly contagious and so common that it may be taken as the type of its class. Its hygienic treatment and the measures needful to prevent its spread consequently deserve more minute detail. The sick-room should be at the top of the house, if possible, and exposed to the south ; every unnecessary article of furniture and all ornaments should be re- moved beforehand, carpets, curtains, and stuffed or upholstered furniture being included. A -window should be kept open constantly, top and bottom ; in cool weather a fire should be burning ; in warm weather ventilation is furthered by placing a gas-burner or large kerosene lamp near the throat of the chimney. Outside the door of the sick-room a sheet moistened with a disinfectant solution should be carefully hung. Only those whose presence is absolutely necessary are to be allowed in the sick-room, and the physician, when his visit is completed, should pass directly out of the house. A convalescent should be kept away from all who are liable to contract or con- vey the disease until desquamation has entirely ceased. Several warm soap-baths should be given before the child emerges into every-day life, and it should finally be dressed in uncontaminated clothing. For further directions as to the disinfection of the room, the clothing, and the excreta, see pages 25, 26.] CHAPTER V. MEASLES. (Morbilli.) ♦ iEtiology.—In contrast with the malignancy of scarlet fever is the compara- tively benign nature of measles, a disease of childhood which is but little feared even by mothers. It is so widespread, and the susceptibility to it is so universal, that measles passes for an almost unavoidable but comparatively insignificant an- noyance. Indeed, few escape it ; and probably the reason that adults have mea- sles so much less frequently than children is simply that most adults have already suffered from it in childhood. A second attack of measles in the same individual may occur, but it is certainly extremely rare. [In highly civilized countries measles has prevailed so long that it would seem that a relative resistance against the poison has been acquired. The frightful rav- ages of the disease when it was planted in virgin soil, as among the Fiji Islanders, not many years ago, apparently bear out this view. The susceptibility to measles is greater and more widespread than is that to scarlet fever—that is to say, fewer individuals reach adult life without having experienced an attack of the former than of the latter.] Measles generally comes in epidemics. Sporadic cases are exceptional. In this respect measles differs decidedly from scarlet fever. The rapid spread of the disease when it has once brokemout is a result of its great contagiousness. If one](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21981565_0075.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
