The nose and throat in medical history / by Jonathan Wright.

  • Jonathan Wright
Date:
[1898?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The nose and throat in medical history / by Jonathan Wright. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    52/268 (page 42)
    Intubation. swelling be present, it is a mortal symptom.” Antitoxin, tracheot- omy and intubation have of late years somewhat impaired the force of this prognosis, but we still recognize the gravity of the condition. Since the following passage contains an indication that the idea at least of intubation existed in Hippocratic times, and because also it is a striking bit of objective description, I will translate it as liter- ally as possible from Kuhn’s text (Vol. II, p. 300) : “ Cynanche.—From cynanche, so-called, a man chokes, and itseems to be especially in the pharynx, and he is unable to swallow his spittle or anything else, and his eyes are affected and start forth as in those strangling, and he stares with them straight ahead, and he is not able to turn them, and he hiccups and starts suddenly up, and the countenance and the pharynx are burning, and even the neck. To those looking on there seems nothing the matter. He sees and hears dully, and from the dyspnea he knows not what he says, nor hears, nor does, but lies there with open mouth drooling and acting thus. He dies on the fifth or the seventh or the ninth day. “Para-Cynanche.—When some of these symptoms are absent, it appears the disease is not so severe and they call it para-cynanche. It is necessary to bleed, especially from the vein beneath the nipple of the breast, for this naturally follows from the hot breath, pneuma* of the lung, and it is necessary to purge by drugs or move the bowels by enemata, and to pass tubes into the pharynx along the jaws, so that the breath may be drawn into the lungs, and to make them as quickly as possible to spit and thin the lungs (clear them out?) and to fumigate with Cicilian hyssop, and with sulphur, and with bitumen, and to breathe these in through the tubes and through the nostrils so that the phlegm may be cleared out, and the pharynx and the tongue may be cleaned in those having phlegm, and the veins under the tongue should be cut; and blood should be drawn from the elbows if the strength is sufficient. Abstention from wine should be enjoined and thin barley water should be taken. After the disease has subsided and the appetite returns, purging with fresh elaterium should be employed so that he may not fall into another illness.” The appearance of an external rash in all these cases of severe, possibly scarlatinal and diphtheritic pharyngitis and laryngitis, was thought by Hippocrates and Galen, and reasserted by Avicenna, to be a good sign. In “Diseases II,” 30 and 31, he recommends hot fomentations for what is apparently peritonsillitis, and scarification of the tonsils, but * For accounts of the pneumatic dogma and the pneumatists see any of the histories of ancient medicine.