An essay on the pathology and therapeutics of scarlet fever / by Caspar Morris.

  • Morris, Caspar, 1805-1884.
Date:
1858
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An essay on the pathology and therapeutics of scarlet fever / by Caspar Morris. 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.)

    22/196
    blance of purpura, and even be mingled with petechia and vibices. In some cases the rash comes out imperfectly for a time, and then disappears, re-appearing again so late even as the seventh day. Instead of the general flush like the efflo- rescence of the simple scarlet fever, there are only points about the flexures of the limbs, or those parts of the body which are kept the -warmest. Often it does not appear at all, the whole body being rather of a waxy paleness; at other times there is an intense lurid erysipelatous flush, which is even occasionally of a livid hue. The condition of the throat and brain varies also; I have seen the brain intensely excited from the very onset of the disease, though in general there is coma more or less profound. The throat is swollen so as almost to render deglutition impos- sible. The tonsils, uvula, and soft palate lie flaccid, looking more like portions of purple velvet than living tissue; coated with black lymph in large portions, which, slightly loosened at the edges, betray an ulcer beneath; a horrible ichor dis- charges from the nostrils, and the room is filled with the most offensive fetor. In many instances the powers of life are to- tally prostrated from the very beginning. A child will be running about in apparently perfect health one hour, feeling its life in every limb, and manifesting its power in untiring gambols, and the next may be found with a glassy and sunken or upturned eye, feeble and frequent pulse, cold surface, great jactitation, and will sink steadily to death in despite of every effort; the sedative influence of the miasm being so intense that no reaction takes place. The disease is not in fact fully developed in these cases, and its real character might elude detection were it not that the subsequent discovery of an im- perfectly formed eruption about the neck, or the occurrence of other cases in the same family or neighbourhood, afford sufficient evidence of its true nature. Scarlet Fever, which, in London, at the time at which Sydenham records his observa-