Diphtheritis or the membranous disease, commonly called membranous croup, as it appears in Roxbury and the vicinity of Boston / by B. E. Cotting ; reprinted from the Proceedings of the Boston Society for Medical Improvement.

  • Cotting, Benjamin Eddy, 1812-1897.
Date:
1859
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Diphtheritis or the membranous disease, commonly called membranous croup, as it appears in Roxbury and the vicinity of Boston / by B. E. Cotting ; reprinted from the Proceedings of the Boston Society for Medical Improvement. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    lit of other and variously developed materials, and must be rded as essentially different from the croupous. These plastic, non-croupous exudations readily condense into shreddy sheets on the application of caustics or acids, and, brought up upon a probang, have been the source of many a wrong diagnosis. The tongue is often, but not uniformly, furred in membranous disease. There is generally no appearance of inflammation of the throat in uncom- plicated cases. If there be tenderness about the neck, it is usually slight. Pain is not often complained of; nor is swelling an ordi- nary symptom. The cervical and other glands are seldom affect- ed. The appetite often continues, and deglutition is comparatively easy. Sometimes the patient appears exceedingly tranquil and conscious, though laboring to exhaustion for breath; at other times he is restless, frequently changing his place and position. The whole surface of the body is often drenched in perspiration. Co- ma sometimes supervenes. Suffocation, often so imminent toward the last, sometimes takes place very suddenly. More frequently, the patient dies exhausted, worn out by the exceeding difficulty and unremitting labor in breathing. The disease has not the brevity nor rapid progress generally attributed to it—its earlier stages being overlooked or disregarded. On the approach of nightfall, the symptoms become aggravated, or rather attract more attention through the surrounding stillness. The careful observer will have noticed, however, that the die has not in reality abated during the day. In the last named, as in almost every other respect, membra- nous disease differs essentially from that noisy breathing, or rather cough, so frequently attending catarrhal affections of the fauces and glottis, and which by its hoarse, or roup-like sounds, gave ori- gin to the popular name of croup. This kind of croup, as it is called (improperly, if the same term must be applied to membra- nous disease also), is only a harmless symptom of another disor- der. Its noisy demonstrations and strangulating sensations are often exceedingly alarming to the inexperienced, but it derives most of its terror from being confounded with membranous dis- ease, with which it has little or no affinity. The danger, more or to the sufferer is only that which the cold or catarrh would give rise to without this attending disturbance. Children are said to be subject to it, which expression ought to satisfy one of its innocuous character. It occurs mostly in the night, suddenly