Diphtheria : its nature and treatment : with special reference to the operation, after-treatment, and complications of tracheotomy / by Robert William Parker.

  • Parker Robert William, -1913.
Date:
1891
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Diphtheria : its nature and treatment : with special reference to the operation, after-treatment, and complications of tracheotomy / by Robert William Parker. 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.

    27/202 (page 13)
    The frequency with which diphtheria—as well as other diseases—are attributed by the lay public to draughts has, I think, a solid foundation of truth. A draught^' may be defined as air in motion. We constantly get into draughts without getting disease therefrom, for the simple reason it may be presumed, that draughts do not always contain pathogenic micro-organisms. But if such currents of air do happen to be charged with them, and if the individual so exposed present suitable constitu- tional conditions the germs take root, and the disease manifests itself. At the International Congress in London (1881) in the Section for Diseases of Children, Dr. Aieet read a most suggestive paper on the spread of diphtheria. In this paper he endeavours to show—and as I think very suc- cessfully—that the contagium is carried about by the wind. He founded his arguments on a careful study of the topographical characters of places, in which diph- theria is most frequent, utilising for the purpose the oflicial reports made to the Local Government Board at different periods, as well as an extensive personal experi- ence in tracing out the origin and cause of such out- breaks. In this paper h.e shows that the districts, in which rural diphtheria commouly occurs, are in bleak and exposed situations — all the villages invaded by diphtheria, with scarcely an exception, are in elevated situations, many of them are on the ridge or slopes of the hill.'' Furthermore, as I have already said, the part primarily affected by diphtheria, in the great majority of cases, is the pharynx or nose, a circumstance which aerial infection explains better than any other ; and by far the most common cause of death, even in cases in which the larynx and trachea never become seriously involved, is pneumonia,