A treatise on the nature, causes, and treatment of erysipelas / by Thomas Nunneley.

  • Nunneley, Thomas, 1809-1870.
Date:
1844
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A treatise on the nature, causes, and treatment of erysipelas / by Thomas Nunneley. 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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    ingly enlarged and anasarcous, vesications form, petechias and phlyctenee appear, and the skin becomes gangrenous. The accompanying fever is usually at first of an inflammatory character, and it is attended by very evident disorder in the primas viae, the secretions are always much deranged; and very soon there is decided evidence of deficient power in both the local and general symptoms. Mr. K. Wood has related some cases of serious disease in the pudenda of young girls, which he appears to consider as of a dif- ferent nature from erysipelas,™ but it seems more probable that they were only instances of this disease in an aggravated form, attacking the genitals, which speedily became of a red, livid hue ; vesications formed, and spreading ulceration soon destroyed the patient. Dr. Copeland states that both he and Mr. Dendy have met with several cases of this description, in the Infirmary for Children ; and it is by no means a very uncommon disease in children of either sex, in a crowded population of large manu- facturing towns, among the children of the poor, who are often ill-clothed and fed, and still worse attended to, or, indeed, in chil- dren of any rank of life, who are unhealthy and cachectic. Though at first the fever is high, with much excitement, the strength is speedily exhausted, and it becomes necessary to support the patient by every means in our power. In very young infants the disease more frequently, in the first instance, attacks the extremities, and the abdomen about the region of the umbilicus, from which it may, and often does, extend to the genitals ; but in children, who are from two to five years old, the genitals are often pri- marily affected. In infants, as in adults, there is the same ten- dency for the disease to affect the internal organs, and it is very common to find in the peritoneal cavity the same turbid serum or semi-purulent matter which characterises erysipeloid inflamma- tion of this membrane in adults.0 DIAGNOSIS. There are few diseases with which a well-marked case of ex- ternal erysipelas is likely to be confounded. The evidences upon the surface of the body are so distinct and palpable, and are at once brought so directly under the cognizance of the senses, that it must be difficult to mistake them. The exanthemata with which it has been erroneously classed, are each distinguished by characters which are so peculiar to them, that it seems impossible m Med. Chir£. Trans., vol. vii., part 1, p. 84. E Dr. Copeland's Dictionary ; art. Erysipelas. 0 Underwood on Diseases of Children, vol. i. Memoirs of the London Medi- cal Society, vol. v., p. 182, where there is related the post-mortem appearances of two infants who died from erysipelas: in both there was much inflammation of the bowels and stomach, with considerable effusion.