Diphtheria and croup : what are they? / by Sir John Rose Cormack.

  • Cormack John Rose, 1815-1882.
Date:
1876
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Diphtheria and croup : what are they? / by Sir John Rose Cormack. 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.

    8/13 (page 7)
    of “ diphtheria ” and the so-called “ cronp.” The “ croup ” of Francis Home, the “ true ci'oup ” of the latest French writers, and the “ tracheal diphtheria ” of Bretonneau, are synonymous terms ; but, nevertheless, it does not follow that “croup” and “diph- theria ” are the same, inasmuch as many English authors have con- founded different diseases under the one designation of “ croup.” Diphtheria is a specific, contagious, asthenic, general disease, characterized by the exudation in certain situations—particularly on the mucous surface of the soft palate, uvula, tonsils, pharynx, larynx, and trachea—of a peculiar cacoplastic lymph, which, together with epithelial cells, generally forms a thick, tough, and ■ stratified pellicle, or false membrane. The false membrane is not a product of the process commonly called inflammation—it is not ordinary lymph—it is a stroma made up of mucous and epithelial cells, arranged in layers of cacoplastic exudation, which are placed one above another, and are separable from one another like the ■ leaves of a book. Some fibrillation is observable in the texture of the layers, but the layers do not consist of fibrin or of albumen. “Membranous sore-throat” and “diphtheritic sore-throat” are P used by some as synonymous terms ; and there are some who use membranous and diphtheritic “ croup ” as synonymes. Such an employment of words ought, however, to be avoided. It would be well if the word croup were expunged from medical literature. From its many meanings and misleading traditions, it has become a source of chaotic controversy and confusion in our current medical literature. If the word be retained, it ought only to be as | a synonyme for stridulous breathing, and not as the name of a disease. The worse than uselessness of continuing to use “croup ” as the name of a disease is obvious, as it is currently applied in different senses. A retrospect of the history of the term croup, and a statement of the various and even opposite meanings now attached to the word, show the desirability of allowing it to fall into desuetude as the name of a disease, and of only employing it -~ii at all-—as signifying stridulous breathing, without relation^ to tne cause of that symptom. Croup is a word which has a more curious history in the literature of clinical medicine than any other word with which I am acquainted. Its dihtU in the arena of scientific medicine has * I- Charles Wilson in his learned and 185B inetn°bfrVatl?nST?n,,9o0Upf 'vhl011 appeared in 1855 and 00 m this Journal. Dr Wilson s work is of sterling value and contains much interesting research and good clinical observation • lit, like many less important writings on the same subject it has at ndamental blemish, which stands forth conspicuously in the df_p of m.odem pathological research—it confounds different diseases under one name. umeienc aPPearaaa®.’’ says Dr Charles Wilson, of the word 1 n our medical literature, in as far as I know, is in a letter