Whooping cough : its pathology and treatment a prize essay, to which the Medical Society of London awarded the Fothergillian Gold Medal for 1881 / by Thomas M. Dolan.

  • Dolan, Thomas M. (Thomas Michael), 1844-1907.
Date:
1882
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Whooping cough : its pathology and treatment a prize essay, to which the Medical Society of London awarded the Fothergillian Gold Medal for 1881 / by Thomas M. Dolan. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    glands are thus enlarged, we may not unreasonably infer that the deeper glands will be affected. The post-mortem room is the place to verify this, and I have found that this inference is generally correct. De Mussy's challenge has been fairly met. He asserts that he has invariably found glandular enlarge- ment when he has looked for it. He is entitled to credence. Others assert that they have not found this enlargement although they have looked for it, though they have some- times noticed the morbid change. They are entitled to equal credence. If the evidence be weighed impartially, it must lean to the side on which there is the greatest weight. Gudneau de Mussy's views are, I believe, untenable, and do not account for the phenomena of pertussis. A better title for his paper would have been ' An Attempt to Explain one of the Phenomena of Whooping-Cough.' Many of the arguments against the De Mussy theory apply to all theories which would locate the disease primarily in a nerve-centre. If we admit a pure nervous theory, then we must dismiss a theory of contagium vivum. In the face of our facts can we do so ? Against the theories which place pertussis amongst the bronchitic class, independent of the difference of symptoms, the contagious argument has equal force. I cannot find any evidence to support the view that it is primarily an inflam- mation of the larynx and glottis. The theory of its relation to the exanthems will admit of fuller consideration. §5.-4 Comparison with the Exanthems. There is a singular unanimity amongst medical writers on some of the facts about pertussis. All agree in considering it contagious or infectious. It has its period of incubation, of effervescence and defervescence ; it has a character peculiar to itself. It runs a regular course; it rarely occurs but once in the same individual. Though its virulence does not equal that of scarlatina or variola, yet it is sufficiently active to extend the disease, and the contagium may be carried to a distance, as the following instances prove. Walshe states that Dr. Neil Arnott related to him the