[1364] Hirsch, III. 87.
[1365] Cullen, First Lines of the Practice of Physic, Part I., Book II. chap. 5, § 2, and Book III. chap. 4.
[1366] On Cutaneous Diseases, vol. I., London, 1808, pp. 319, 326, 333. He included also the garrotillo of Spain and the throat-plague of Naples (1618) among the “varieties of scarlatina,” inasmuch as they had not unfrequently a rash which was of the erysipelatous kind. Hirsch (u. s.) and Max Jaffe (“Die Diphtherie in epidemiologischer und nosologischer Beziehung vornehmlich nach Französischen und Englischen Autoren zusammengestellt,” Originalabhandlung in Schmidt’s Jahrbücher, CXIII., 1862, pp. 97-120) do not seem to doubt the diphtheritic nature of the garrotillos of Spain and Italy in the 16th and 17th centuries, but they agree with Willan in classing most of the 18th century throat-distempers of English and American writers as scarlatinal, reserving as diphtheritic, or as more nearly allied to diphtheria, Starr’s “morbus strangulatorius” of Cornwall, some cases of infants recorded by Denman (supra, p. 714), Rumsey’s cases of “croup” (supra, p. 716), and the epidemic described by Bard, of New York (supra, p. 690). These matters of identification appear to be like matters of taste, for which the best rule is non disputandum. I have already pointed out that Bard himself did not hesitate to identify the epidemic throat-disease of his time with that which Douglass had described in New England thirty years before.
[1367] P. Bretonneau, Des inflammations spéciales du tissu muqueux et en particulier de la Diphthérite, Paris, 1826, with supplement in 1827.
[1368] Id. Arch. gén. de méd., Jan., 1855.
[1369] Mackenzie, Ed. Med. and Surg. Journ., April, 1825, p. 294, and Med. Chir. Rev., 1827, p. 289, for Glasgow in 1819. The disease which Mackenzie called croup, was generally known in Glasgow at that time as “croupy sore throat.” It was very fatal, attacking several children in the same family, was reckoned contagious, was not a modification of scarlatina, was very different from idiopathic croup as it began on the tonsils and descended to the larynx and trachea, and, lastly, was sometimes marked by gangrenous foetor.
Robertson, Edin. Med. and Surg. Journ. (1826) XXV. 279, for Kelso in 1825.
Bewley, Dub. Journ. of Med. Sci. VIII. 401, for Dublin in 1835-36. An outbreak observed by Brown, at Haverfordwest, in 1849-50, involving some 200 cases and 40 deaths, was identified in 1858 with diphtheria (Med. Times and Gaz., May, 1858, p. 566, see also Med. Chir. Trans. XL. 49). Outbreaks more vaguely recalled in 1858 as diphtheria occurred at Ashford in 1817, and at Leatherhead (30 deaths in the workhouse) at an uncertain date (2nd Rep. (1859) Med. Offices Privy Council, pp. 244, 320). F. Ryland, Diseases and Injuries of the Larynx and Trachea, London, 1837, pp. 161-175, described a similar disease as a complication of measles at Birmingham in 1835.
[1370] Med. Times and Gazette, Lancet, British Med. Journal, &c. for 1858 and 1859. See references in Hirsch, III. 89.
[1371] Second Report (for 1859) by the Medical Officer of the Privy Council, London, 1860, p. 161 seq. Dr Greenhow published an essay on Diphtheria in 1860. Lectures important for the nosological definition were published by Sir William Jenner in 1861 (reprinted in 1893). Other essays called forth by the epidemic were by W. F. Wade (1858), Ernest Hart (1859), Edward Copeman (Norwich, 1859). Christison, J. W. Begbie and others wrote upon it in Scotland.