This fluid is of so pungent and corrosive a nature that it cuts out the diphtheria mucous and causes it to disappear.
Fibrinous casts are characteristic of fibrinous bronchitis, but may also be found in diphtheria of the smaller bronchi.
Acute pseudomembranous inflammations, which occur chiefly upon the tonsils and nasopharynx, are generally caused by the diphtheria bacillus, but may result from streptococcic infection.
In many cases diphtheria {273} bacilli can be demonstrated in smears made from the membrane and stained with Loffler's methylene-blue or 2 per cent.
In many cases this afforded relief; {330} at least the little patients did not die the awful death by asphyxiation, though not many recovered from the diphtheria or the results of the operation.
It is owing to O'Dwyer and a few other sympathetic souls, who "hoped almost against hope," that finally experience succeeded in demonstrating the true value of diphtheria antitoxin.
Usually forty or fifty per cent, of those who were attacked by diphtheriawould perish from the disease, nor was it easy to foresee the end of any epidemic.
The medical profession understands very well now how unfavorable were the conditions under which diphtheriaantitoxin was used at first.
In the early days of the employment of diphtheria antitoxin, all of these complications were noted in many cases.
The original diphtheria serum employed was not concentrated; so when a sufficient amount of antitoxic units to neutralize the toxins of the disease under treatment was employed, a large quantity of serum had to be injected.
The little patient was a girl of about four years of age, who on the fifth or sixth day of a severe laryngeal diphtheria developed symptoms of laryngeal stenosis, with great dyspnoea.
The place is harried with illness; since I came there has been both fever and diphtheria there.
In a few days the diphtheriaepidemic reached terrible proportion's.
There everything was improving; the poor Sharland child indeed had slipped away on the night after the Squire's visit, but the other bad cases in the diphtheria ward were mending fast.
I have just come back from that accursed place; three cases of diphtheria in one house, Sharland's wife--and two others down with fever.
She used to stay the night when the diphtheria was at its worst; but there are only four anxious cases left, the rest all convalescent.
Mother and neighbors were worn out, and it was difficult to spare a hospital nurse for long together from the diphtheria cases.
It is not very uncommon for patients with mild forms of diphtheria to walk about and attend to their usual duties and, if children, to go to school, and in that inviting field to spread the disease.
In small doses, it will prevent the occurrence of diphtheria in those exposed, or liable to exposure, to the disease.
For, as we noted under tonsilitis, it is impossible in some cases to decide, from the appearance of the throat, whether the disease is diphtheria or tonsilitis.
Therefore, in all cases of diphtheria, examination of the secretion in the throat must show the absence of diphtheria germs before the patient can rightfully mix with other people.
A specimen of secretion removed from the throat for microscopical examination by a bacteriologist as to the presence of diphtheria germs alone will determine the point.
The consideration of diphtheria will be limited to emphasizing the importance of calling in expert medical advice at the earliest possible moment in suspicious cases of throat trouble.
Diphtheria may invade the nose and be discoverable in the nostrils.
The general points of difference are: in diphtheria the tonsils are usually completely covered with a gray membrane.
The swelling differs in degree; in some cases the tonsils may be so swollen as almost to meet together, but there is no danger of suffocation from obstruction of the throat, as occurs in diphtheria and very rarely in quinsy.
Membranous croup is diphtheria of the lower part of the throat (larynx), in the region of the Adam's apple.
It has so altered the outlook in diphtheria that, formerly regarded by physicians with alarm and dismay, it is now rendered comparatively harmless.
In diphtheria the membrane which covers the tonsils sometimes spreads to the cheeks, tongue, and lips, but in either case the general symptoms will serve to distinguish the diseases, and neither can be treated by the layman.
Diphtheria and scarlet fever are perhaps the best known of these.
This disease, like diphtheria and scarlet fever, is sometimes due to contact.
Milk-borne scarlet fever and diphtheria seem to be generally, if not always, due to the direct contamination of the milk from human sources.
They are probably not to be classed with the so-called true toxins generated by the diphtheria and tetanus bacilli, since there is no evidence that they give rise to antibodies when injected into susceptible animals.
Thus paralysis following diphtheria is in all probability due to a different toxin from that which causes the acute symptoms of poisoning or possibly to a modification of it sometimes formed in specially large amount.
In the case of diphtheria Sidney Martin obtained toxic albumoses in the spleen, which he considered were due to the digestive action of an enzyme formed by the bacillus in the membrane and absorbed into the circulation.
Thus in cholera the bacteria are practically confined to the intestine, in diphtheria to the region of the false membrane, in tetanus to some wound.
In the case of diphtheria the antitoxic power of the serum may reach 800 units per cubic centimetre, or even more.
Thus in diphtheria changes in both nerve cells and nerve fibres have been found, and in tetanus minute alterations in the nucleus and protoplasm of nerve cells.
The facts with regard to passive immunity were thus established and were put to practical application by the introduction of diphtheria antitoxin as a therapeutic agent in 1894.
Membranous croup, which is the same thing as diphtheria of the larynx.
In diphtheria the time varies much; it may be only one day, and it may be one or two weeks.
While most of these are harmless or cause only the souring of milk, others are occasionally present which may produce serious diseases such as typhoid fever, diphtheria scarlet fever, cholera, tuberculosis, and many forms of diarrhoea.
Scarlet fever and diphtheria are much less contagious; for both of these a pretty close exposure is necessary.
Every one of them was well recognized as a possible result of diphtheria long before the antitoxin was discovered, and every one of them can be readily produced by injections of diphtheria bacilli or their toxin into animals.
Black" diphtheria was as deadly as the Black Death of the Middle Ages.
By any ordinary means, then, of diagnosis, we would often be in doubt as to whether a case were diphtheria or not, until it was both well advanced and had had time to infect other members of the family.
In addition to being almost the only common disease of childhood which is not mild and becoming milder, diphtheria is unique in another respect, and that is its point of attack.
The symptoms of a mild case of diphtheria for the first two, or even three, days are very much like those of an ordinary sore throat.
Diphtheria antitoxin, for instance, the first and best known triumph of the new medicine, is the antidotal substance formed in the blood of a horse in response to a succession of increasing doses of the bacilli of diphtheria.
For instance, not a few healthy noses and throats contain the bacillus of diphtheria and the diplococcus of pneumonia.
A dose of this injected into another guinea-pig suffering from diphtheriawould promptly save its life.
These effects of the diphtheria toxin are also of interest for a somewhat unexpected reason, since it has been claimed that they are effects of the antitoxin, by those who are opposed to its use.
In view of the fact that diphtheriais so frequently present in our larger cities, this may appear at present a Utopian idea.
A few years ago a certain school in this city was rarely without a case of diphtheria among its pupils for many months.
A predisposing factor which applies alike to diphtheria and all other throat affections is the abnormal condition of the nose and throat.
Not only should children who have had diphtheria be prevented from returning to school until infection is no longer possible, but other children of the same household should also be kept at home.
Last year I noticed a lady coming from a house from which a diphtheria flag was flying, who walked to the corner to take the street car, when a nurse with a small child approached.
After the lapse of about a month a scum of diphtheria growth will have appeared over the surface of the fluid.
They may be of a ferment nature in diphtheria and tetanus.
The value of antitoxin treatment in diphtheria is discussed in the Brit.
The preparation of diphtheria antitoxin may be taken as an example, but what follows would be equally applicable to other diseases, such as tetanus.
Roux believes this is merely an attenuated diphtheria bacillus.
Power traced an epidemic of diphtheria in North London to the milk supply.
Recent observations on the infectivity of diphtheria in milk by Schottelius have established the fact that milk is a good medium for the bacillus of diphtheria, but that it rarely acts as a vehicle for transmitting the disease.
Diphtheria in the same way, but in a lesser degree, may be isolated from the air, and from the nasal mucous membrane of nurses, attendants, and patients in a ward set apart for the treatment of the disease.
The enormous strides in the knowledge of diphtheria and other germ diseases have also placed us in a better position respecting their conveyance by milk.
Other observers have not been able to confirm these observations, and the whole matter of cowdiphtheria must remain for the present sub judice.
This antitoxine neutralizes the effects of the diphtheria toxine, and then the body develops strength to drive off the bacteria which have obtained lodgment in the throat.
Horses have been treated in the same way as with the diphtheria poison, and in the same way they develop a substance which neutralizes the snake poison.
This substance has been isolated from the blood of animals that have recovered from an attack of diphtheria, and has been called diphtheria antitoxine.
The blood of a horse so treated is found to have the effect of neutralizing the diphtheria poison, although the blood of the horse before such treatment has no such effect.
It is upon this principle that is based the use of antitoxines in diphtheria and tetanus It will be clear that to obtain the antitoxine we must depend upon some natural method for its production.
This animal is inoculated with small quantities of the diphtheria poison without the diphtheria bacillus.
We must be very careful to get not only clean milk but milk from healthy cows milked by persons who have no typhoid fever, scarlet fever, or diphtheria in their homes.
Four out of every five children suffering from diphtheria or other throat or ear troubles are found to have from one to ten bad teeth.
Tell how milk may carry diphtheria into our homes.
Since then, serotherapy has been applied, by Behring in Germany and by Roux in France, todiphtheria (1892).
We owe the invention of diphtheria antitoxin entirely to experiments on animals.
There is no other treatment for diphtheria to-day.
The diphtheria poison is much more harmful to a man, and kills him more quickly than it does a horse; it is therefore imperative to use the antidote early.
All those who have seen the effects of one of these injections of serum on children down with diphtheria are veritably stupefied at the resurrection which they witness only a few minutes after the injection.
The Schick test for diphtheria susceptibility is an illustration of one method of approach to the problem of the epidemiologist in settling who needs protection.
These spots have been frequently observed to appear after an attack of diphtheria or influenza.
One Adrenal-centered Type Hairy Dark Masculinity marked Tendency to diphtheria and hernia These are some of the master types.
Diphtheria has been found to occur most virulently among adrenal poor individuals.
Understand that it is only a fad of modern medicine to say that cholera and typhoid and diphtheria are caused by bacilli and germs; nonsense.
Cholera is caused by a frightful pain in the stomach, and diphtheria is caused by trying to cure a sore throat.
It has not and will not | | fail to cure Diphtheria quick.
An epidemic of diphtheriabroke out among my nearest neighbors, and after four deaths in as many families within a stone's throw of my residence a son of mine aged three years was taken.
The latter will completely sterilize a thread dipped in a pure culture of the diphtheria bacillus.
Light, oxygen, ozone and all oxidizers destroy the active principle of the diphtheria toxin, which is, moreover, rendered almost inactive by organic acids.
Diphtheria toxin is likewise precipitated by the reagents for albumoses, particularly sodium sulphate in saturated solution.
The serum of an animal rendered immune in this manner contains a diphtheria antitoxin which possesses high power.
Roux and Yersin[110] were the first to affirm that diphtheria is an autointoxication caused by a very active poison formed by the microbe in the restricted locality where it develops.
The occurrence that takes place in diphtheria and tetanus is one of the best examples to cite in support of this view.
Not likely to be any diphtheria this time of year," he began again, spurred by the kick Phoebe planted on his kneecap.
Miss Duluth's afraid of diphtheria and scarlet fever," said Annie, resolutely, as she poured out a glass of milk for him.
It had come on very suddenly, it seems, and if Annie's memory served her right it was just the way diphtheria began.
Five cases of malignant diphtheria were located this morning on Bedford street, and as they were in different houses they mean five starting points for disease.
The woman who brought the diphtheria to us sought our house as a place of refuge, because the house being "low and in a low place" the cannon balls would pass over it.
The other members of the family took the diphtheria one by one, until all but my father and one brother had this awful disease.
It is simply as follows:--"At the first indication of diphtheria in the throat of the child, make the room clean.
Late in May an epidemic of diphtheria appeared in Riverbank, several cases being in David's Sunday school and the school was closed.
That evening Derling, sent downtown for medicine, heard at the druggist's that 'Thusia's child had diphtheria and that there was a fresh outbreak of the disease in town.
When the young doctor admitted that the child had diphtheria Derling, in a rage, almost threw him out of the house.
