Remarks on the theory and treatment of scarlet fever : with brief notices of the disease as it prevailed epidemically at Bridlington, in 1831 / by Humphry Sandwith.

Date:
1835
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Remarks on the theory and treatment of scarlet fever : with brief notices of the disease as it prevailed epidemically at Bridlington, in 1831 / by Humphry Sandwith. 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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    employed, or trusted to alone. In neglected cases of this kind, the extension of the inflammation, from the mucous membrane of the fauces to the excretory duct of the parotid and submaxillary glands, exasperated, doubtless, by the sympathetic irritation dependent on the rapid sloughing of the throat, produced excessive tumefaction of those glands and the surrounding cellular tissue, with consequent mechanical obstruction to the return of blood from the brain. A low fever, with delirium, sometimes slowly, sometimes rapidly, terminated their sufferings. In the latter stages, from the extension of the inflammation to the larynx, this variety was prone to lapse into the fourth, or that of bronchial inflammation. All were not attacked with equal severity, the symptoms being mild in a few instances. 2. In some of the cases gastric irritation, from the extension of the inflammation of the fauces down the oesophagus to the stomach, greatly aug- mented the danger, by adding to the extent and importance of the inflamed surface of mucous membranes, interrupting the rash, rendering the operation of purgatives more precarious, and exas- perating the irritation of the nervous system. Occasionally the whole alimentary canal seemed to participate in the affection of its upper portions. The fatal epidemic of 1793, from Dr. Lettsom’s description of it, obviously corresponded closely with this variety. It differed, at the same time, from those described by Drs. Fothergill and Hamil- ton, because decided affections of the abdominal
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