1879, a daughter, age 34 years; cause, consumption.
1879, father, age 76 years; cause, old age, feeble a long time.
1883, a son-in-law, age 47 years; cause, bronchial consumption.
This last was the only one of whom I had charge, and it was during one of my professional visits that I discovered the situation of the well. One of the first things of which he complained was sore throat and hoarseness, laryngo-pharyngitis. At the same time he was troubled with an eruption. I never saw it, but as he described it I should say that it was erythematous in its nature. If he exercised so as to perspire, or took hot drinks, it would make its appearance, causing the surface to itch and feel very uncomfortable.
During the spring and summer of 1882 he was under the care of various physicians, both regular and irregular, until the first of October of that year, when he came under my care, at which time he was troubled with cough and hoarseness, it being with difficulty that he spoke aloud. The stomach was very irritable, frequently rejecting food, and more often his medicine. Once when he was in my office for the purpose of consultation, I inquired in regard to his drinking-water. He told me that it was “splendid water,” and all right; that he drank a great deal of it. At various times during the fall and early winter he would seem to improve, when some imprudence on his part would put him back. Finally he grew worse, as manifested by failing strength, loss of appetite, and by coughing and raising more, until his death.
The sputa was very tenacious, and at last was quite thick, and composed almost entirely of pus. A few weeks before he died I examined his chest thoroughly. There was no dulness over either lung, and he could fill both of them equally well. Auscultation revealed very heavy, moist rales.
About five weeks before the death of the father,—that was some time in January,—I was called to the house to attend his son, a lad six years of age, with dysentery accompanied with petechial eruption over the limbs and body. He recovered slowly. In about two weeks two other sons, aged respectively eight and ten years, came down in the same way with dysentery and the eruption, causing them to scratch vigorously. The mother was troubled with the eruption, but no dysentery.
D. M. Currier.