Advice to the people in general, with regard to their health

by S. A. D. Tissot

Chapter VI.

Of the Diseases of the Throat.

Sect. 102.

he Throat is subject to many Diseases: One of the most frequent and the most dangerous, is that Inflammation of it, commonly termed a Quinsey. This in Effect is a Distemper of the same Nature with an Inflammation of the Breast; but as it occurs in a different Part, the Symptoms, of Course, are very different. They also vary, not a very little, according to the different Parts of the Throat which are inflamed.

§ 103. The general Symptoms of an Inflammation of the Throat are, the Shivering, the subsequent Heat, the Fever, the Head-ach, red high-coloured Urine, a considerable Difficulty, and sometimes even an Impossibility, of swallowing any thing whatever. But if the nearer Parts to the Glottis, that is, of the Entrance into the Windpipe, or Conduit through which we breathe, are attacked, Breathing becomes excessively difficult; the Patient is sensible of extreme Anguish, and great Approaches to Suffocation; the Disease is then extended to the Glottis, to the Body of the Wind-pipe, and even to the Substance of the Lungs, whence it becomes speedily fatal.

The Inflammation of the other Parts is attended with less Danger; and this Danger becomes still less, as the Disease is more extended to the outward and superficial Parts. When the Inflammation is general, and seizes all the internal Parts of the Throat, and particularly the Tonsils or Almonds, as they are called, the Uvula, or Process of the Palate, and the Basis, or remotest deepest Part of the Tongue, it is one of the most dangerous and dreadful Maladies. The Face is then swelled up and inflamed; the whole Inside of the Throat is in the same Condition; the Patient can get nothing down; he breathes with a Pain and Anguish, which concur, with a Stuffing or Obstruction in his Brains, to throw him into a kind of furious Delirium, or Raving. His Tongue is bloated up, and is extended out of his Mouth; his Nostrils are dilated, as tho' it were to assist him in his Breathing; the whole Neck, even to the Beginning of the Breast, is excessively tumified or swelled up; the Pulse is very quick, very weak, and often intermits; the miserable Patient is deprived of all his Strength, and commonly dies the second or third Day. Very fortunately this Kind, or Degree of it, which I have often seen in Languedoc, happens very rarely in Swisserland, where the Disease is less violent; and where I have only seen People die of it, in Consequence of its being perniciously treated; or by Reason of some accidental Circumstances, which were foreign to the Disease itself. Of the Multitude of Patients I have attended in this Disorder, I have known but one to fail under it, whose Case I shall mention towards the Close of this Chapter.

§ 104. Sometimes the Disease shifts from the internal to the external Parts: the Skin of the Neck and Breast grows very red, and becomes painful, but the Patient finds himself better.

At other Times the Disorder quits the Throat; but is transferred to the Brain, or upon the Lungs. Both these Translations of it are mortal, when the best Advice and Assistance cannot be immediately procured; and it must be acknowledged, that even the best are often ineffectual.