The diseases of the Madras famine of 1877-78 / by Alexander Porter.

  • Porter, Alexander.
Date:
1889
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The diseases of the Madras famine of 1877-78 / by Alexander Porter. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    191/288 (page 165)
    The‘pancreas weighed on an average fully 2^ ozs. in the men, and fully 2 ozs. in the women. Its structure Pancreas. appeared healthy in all. A list of these cases is attached. Illustrative Cases, Case 425.—Ragamen, a coolie man of Pariah caste, about twenty years old, from Noveram, a year in Madras, admitted on 8th May 1887 with “ cough and weakness.” Has been ill six months, first with fever, then with cough for last three months, with only occasional attacks of fever; has had night sweats, but never spat blood. Is rather emaciated, in legs especially; pulse 108 ; respirations 36 ; marked dulness on percussion, with clicking rales on auscultation over the apex of right, and base of left, lung ; cough very troublesome; spit profuse, mucopurulent; tongue white ; appetite good; bowels regular. 15th—Diarrhoea since yesterday, stools thin and green ; pulse 120 ; respirations 48 ; cough very troublesome ; spit profuse. Died on 19th. Autopsy six hours after death: height 5 feet 2 inches; weight 74 lbs.: body emaciated; rigor mortis present. Skull.—Scalp and meninges pale, a little serum in sub-dural space and beneath arachnoid, pia mater anaemic. Brain, 401 ozs., firm, anaemic. Chest. —Right pleura contains half a pint of straw-coloured serum, firm old adhesions and false membrane present. Lung, 25.f ozs.; slightly torn at apex ; not collapsed ; exsanguineous and semi-solid (except anterior margin) ; section tough, yellowish-white from a yellowish uniform deposit in the walls of the air-cells doubling their thickness ; there are no localised softened masses, although the deposit in places is tolerably like miliary tubercles. Left pleura healthy. Lung, 22f ozs. ; apneu- matosis of posterior border, otherwise like right; bronchial glands of both large and black. Pericardium pearly, distended with serum (a pint or so). Heart very large, 10|- ozs., flabby, no fat on surface, both sides stuffed with firm fibrinous clots, a small “soldier’s spot” on anterior surface near root of aorta. Abdomen.—Peritoneum pearly ; contains two quarts of straw-coloured serum, with a large loose clot or cloud of same colour floating therein. Small intestine contains one lumbricus and a little thin reddish fluid; mucous coat, pale rose with ecchymoti.c-like subepithelial colouration of the valvulse conniventes, and in corresponding lines and patches in the ileum, no thickening, nor enlargement of Peyer’s or solitary glands. Large intestine contains a little ochrey fluid ; mucous coat in ascending and descending colon, pink, swollen, and thrown into numerous folds; glands not infiltrated with tubercles. Stomach of moderate size ; empty ; mucous coat in rugae, pink. Liver, 38 ozs.; 5£ + 3iX 6 X inches ; cuts firm; surface red, with yellow puncta ; looks fatty, but not so under microscope. Gall-bladder.—Walls oedematous; contains 2 ozs. thin greenish bile. . Spleen 31 ozs., flabby ; 4 X 2} X H inches ; section dark venous, granular, not friable. Right kidney, 2J ozs. ; capsule strips easily ;