On erysipelas and its treatment by perchloride of iron / by William Pirrie.

  • William Pirrie
Date:
1861
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On erysipelas and its treatment by perchloride of iron / by William Pirrie. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    proximate cause of the disorder is altogether unknown, still the recorded experience of past observers, and the conclusions of modern physicians, all tend to the belief that the disease is a constitutional one, the result of some particular poison, which may either be introduced from without, or generated within the system in conse¬ quence of some disturbance of the chemical or vital changes which are ever taking place within the organism. The method of exclusion and the process of induction alike lead to the inference that the general features of the disorder are characteristic of a vitiated or poisoned condition of the circulating fluid. Thus, the results of our daily observations are sufficient to satisfy our minds, that the causes of many other complaints, such as ex¬ tremes of heat or cold, hunger and privation, intemper¬ ance, suppression of habitual discharges, mental emo¬ tions or mechanical injuries, are altogether inadequate of themselves to the production of the phenomena which characterize the disease in question. Were erysipelas the simple result of any of these causes, it would not so widely differ in many important respects from the ordi¬ nary characters of the inflammatory complaints arising from them ; and it could not fail to be of much more fre¬ quent occurrence than it is, seeing that many of the agencies already named exist among all classes and in every locality, and are in daily and hourly operation. That some peculiarly faulty state of constitution is ne¬ cessary for the development of the disease is also highly probable from the fact that the same unhealthy and