Discussion on diphtheria / John Glaister.

  • Glaister, John, 1856-1932.
Date:
[1895?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Discussion on diphtheria / John Glaister. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    disease. For it has been clearly shown that, occasionally, some time after the physical signs have disappeared, bacilli are found remaining in the air-passages. While, in the large bulk of cases, it may be said that patients who have survived are free from infection bv the end of twenty-one days, examination by bacteriological tests has demonstrated the bacilli in the air-passages—in some cases at the end. of four, and also at the end of five weeks, showing that, during this increased period, the patients are still infectious. _ When a case of diphtheria attacks one child in a family ot children, usually the attacked child is isolated, while the others are sent from the house, to perhaps turn ill later on. They are supposed to be free of the disease because they show no signs of illness; but it has frequently been demonstrated that^although showing no signs of illness, these children have the characteristic bacillus of the disease in their air-passages. Under such circumstances the early forewarning would enable measures to be more quickly taken. Treatment, with Narration of Cases. In Great Britain, Dr. Armand Ruffer was the first to treat the horse by Roux's method, and the first to prepare the first antitoxin made in this country. In the month of October of last year, Dr. Russell, the senior Medical Officer of Health of this city, and myself required to be in London on matters which embraced an inquiry into this department, and one of the places we visited was the British Institute of Preventive Medicine. Dr. M'Fadyen, the distinguished collaborateur of Dr. Ruffer, was good enough to give us elaborate details on this subject, and he informed us that the first serum of the first horse treated in Great Britain was to be drawn from the animal that morning. We were in the laboratory when the beakers containing the blood—consisting of a well-defined clot and separated serum—arrived from the stable; and we thus, in an indirect way, assisted at the first step in the antitoxin manufacture in this country. To add to our many other obligations, Drs. Ruffer and M'Fadyen were good enough to forward to each of us a satisfactory quantity of this same serum after it had been standardised. What the fate of this was, in my own case, will fall to be now related. Since I received my first supply of serum from Dr. Ruffer, on the 10th of last November, I have only seen two cases of diphtheria, and neither of these was under my own care;