A practical analysis of seventy cases of inflammatory, functional, and structural disease of the heart : with observations on the treatment and prevention / by S. Scott Alison, M.D.

  • Alison, Somerville Scott, 1813-1877.
Date:
1851
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A practical analysis of seventy cases of inflammatory, functional, and structural disease of the heart : with observations on the treatment and prevention / by S. Scott Alison, M.D. 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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    I. INFLAMMATORY DISEASES OF THE HEABT, Respecting the cases of inflammation, a few words will-suffice. They are only three in number. Case i. This was a boy, four years of age. The form of disease was advanced pericarditis, with copious sero-purulent eff'usion in the pericardium, and very abundant woolly-looking deposit of IjTnjjh upon the Avhole exterior surface of the heart. The aortic orifice was some- what contracted and corrugated. The patient, eleven weeks before, had been attacked with scarlet fever.' Anasarca occurred three weeks after. Inflammation of the left lung and pleura had likewise super- vened, causing hepatisation and copious effusion into the pleura of sero-purulent fluid. The patient had been an out-door patient at a medical institution up to within a few days of his death; and he came under my care Avhen it was too late to adopt treatment Avith any hope of a favourable result. This case was published in the Medical Gazette} Case ii. This was a boy, six years old. The symptoms led me to believe that a moderate amount of inflammation of the pericai-dium had taken place. On the fifth day of an attack of scarlet fever, the patient was seized -with severe pain in the region of the heart, and with violent palpitation. A small bleeding afforded great relief; and the patient recovered. Pains in the joints and anasarca followed. Recovery took place; but the impulse of the heart was long after ob- served to be abnormally great.^ Case hi. A girl, ten years of age, largely made, was seized with acute rheumatism. She had had a similar attack about a year before; for which I treated her, but -without venesection. The heart did not become implicated. On this occasion, she did not apply to me for several days after the commencement of the attack; and she had not been seen above once by a medical attendant. On my first examina- tion, the to and fro rubbing sound was distinctly heard, and a loud sawing systolic sound, strongest at the apex of the heart, was readily perceived. Under local bleeding, the use of mercury, and quietude, the disease subsided, and the rubbing sound died away. The sawing » Medical Gazette, February 1845. » Ibid.