Typho-malarial fever : is it a special type of fever? : being remarks introductory to the discussion of the question in the Section of Medicine, International Medical Congress / by J.J. Woodward.

Woodward, Joseph Janvier, 1833-1884.

Date:: 1876

Credit: Typho-malarial fever : is it a special type of fever? : being remarks introductory to the discussion of the question in the Section of Medicine, International Medical Congress / by J.J. Woodward. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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$intestines of some of their cases, were really of this nature.* This ap- pears to me the more probable, because in the case of the very similar epidemic which Sarconef observed in Naples in 1764, and which, iu the cii’cumstances under which it occxuTed, its course, symptoms, and the anatomical lesions observed after death, appears to have been identical ■with the morbus mucosus of Koderer and Wagler, I read that these gangi’enous spots were again observed in the alimentary canal of some cases, and that they occurred chiefly in the small intestines. But even if this interpretation is correct—and I believe it is—I cannot think that the characteristic tyj^hoid lesion was present in all the cases in Avhich Eaderer and Wagler made autopsies, or it surely would have received greater attention from those acute observers, and I must think that in a paii;, at least, of their cases, there was no other lesion of the small intestine than a smart intestinal catan*h. The doctrine of the mucous fever, as taught by Koderer and Wagler, took firm root iu the medical mind of Europe.^ It figures largely in many of the test-books of the first half of the present centuiy, and you will even find the descriptions reproduced, without criticism, under the head of “ Mucous or pituitous fever,” in the admirable Dictionary of Copeland.§ Some writers have expressed the opinion that this mucous disease was after aU neither more nor less than ordinary tyjDhoid fever.|| I cannot agree with them. I see in the story, as told by the original observers, unquestionable marks of malarial complications; indeed, also of scorbutic complications. I do not maiwel that the Gottingen ob- servers should have devoted sections of their work to the discussion of the relationship of the mucous disease with intermittent fever, and of its relationship with scurvy, and should have arrived at the conclusion, to use their own striking language, that the epidemic which they observed was the comipted and degenerate progeny of intermittent fever. They thought they saw also a causal relationship between intei’mittent fever and dysentery, an oj)inion which I cannot discuss here, but Avhich I must confess I share to a certain extent. No doubt, since their time, the term mucous fever has often enotagh been applied to simple tj'phoid fever, and although of late it has been banished from the books, it still sinwives among certain practitioners Avho Avere educated thu'ty or forty * op. cit., p. 162. t M iCH AKL S ARCONK. Istoria ragionata dei malt osservaiiin Napoli, nelcorso delC anno Na- ples, 1764. There is a German translation by Fuesslin, Zurich, 1772, and a French translation by Bellay, Lyons, 1804. Our library contains the German translation only. { OzANAM. Op. cil., Tom I, p. 257 et gives an e.vcellent abstract of the works of Rdderer and AVagler, and of Sarcone. J James Copeland. Diet. 0/Pract. Med., London, 1858, Vol. I, p. 98S. I As for example, W. Griesengeh. Jn/ections-Nrankheiten. Virchow’s Hamlbnch der Spec. Path. u. Therapie. Hd, 11, abth. 2. Erlangen, 1S57, S. 118$