A paper on diphtheria : read before the New York Academy of Medicine, January 1861 / by James Wynne.

  • Wynne, James, 1814-1871.
Date:
1861
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A paper on diphtheria : read before the New York Academy of Medicine, January 1861 / by James Wynne. 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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    the general and wide-spread disposition to affections of the mucous membranes which everywhere prevailed, and for the most part still continues. Sometimes, as in the case of the attacks at Albany and in some parts of California, the disease presented itself with great intensity at the beginning; but as a general rule its progress has been gradual, progressive, and chiefly confined to the ill-ventilated and densely crowded abodes of the poor. Whether the particular causes which have given rise to this disease are destined to terminate in a short time, or to progress in an increased ratio, it is not possible to deter- mine. The language of Trousseau, however, in his report on tubing the larynx, made to the Imperial Academy of Medicine, may not be unworthy of consideration when calculating the chances of the in- crease or sudden subsidence of the disease in this country. Those who for twenty-five years, he remarks, have followed the epidemics of diphtheria which have stricken the capital, may satisfy themselves that the malady has, especially during the last twelve or thirteen years, not only considerably extended, but has assumed a much se- verer form. Up to 1846 diphtheria scarcely appeared in an epidemic form, and the cases of it which were observed in Paris presented all the characters so well described by Bretonneau in his treatise, and so clearly pointed out by Guersant, in the Dictionnaire de Medecine, where this meritorious practitioner confirms in every particular what the illustrious physician of Tours had seen. But in the year preceding his own death, Guersant had seen the grave form of the disease which a little later carried off one of his own children, and which more than ever in these last years has appeared in Paris, as well as some of the Departments, with a violence which forcibly re- minds us of the epidemic of the sixteenth century. The progress of the disease in France, as traced by this eminent practitioner, leaves room for the most lively apprehension as to its future in the United States, and seems to demand of medical men the most careful study of its phenomena and modes of treatment. Most practitioners, who have any experience in the treatment of the dis- ease, agree that it is one with which they are not at all familiar, and that it now appears among us for the first time of late years. The writer has conversed with a number of eminent practitioners, in New York and elsewhere, who have been engaged in the active du- ties of their profession for a period varying from a quarter to half a century, and with here and there an exception, they have declared the disease unknown to them. The inference is fair that if these