Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine [507]
of the disease in hospitals, suggest an infectious origin (Townsend). Kent a speaks of a new-born infant dying of spontaneous hemorrhage from about the hips.
Infantile scurvy, or Barlow's disease, has lately attracted marked attention, and is interesting for the numerous extravasations and spontaneous hemorrhages which are associated with it. A most interesting collection of specimens taken from the victims of Barlow's disease were shown in London in 1895.
In an article on the successful preventive treatment of tetanus neonatorum, or the "scourge of St. Kilda," of the new-born, Turner says the first mention of trismus nascentium or tetanus neonatorum was made by Rev. Kenneth Macaulay in 1764, after a visit to the island of St. Kilda in 1758. This gentleman states that the infants of this island give up nursing on the fourth or fifth day after birth; on the seventh day their gums are so clinched together that it is impossible to get anything down their throats; soon after this they are seized with convulsive fits and die on the eighth day. So general was this trouble on the island of St. Kilda that the mothers never thought of making any preparation for the coming baby, and it was wrapped in a dirty piece of blanket till the ninth or tenth day, when, if the child survived, the affection of the mother asserted itself. This lax method of caring for the infant, the neglect to dress the cord, and the unsanitary condition of the dwellings, make it extremely probable that the infection was through the umbilical cord. All cases in which treatment was properly carried out by competent nurses have survived. This treatment consisted in dressing the cord with iodoform powder and antiseptic wool, the breast-feeding of the baby from the first, and the administration of one-grain doses of potassium bromid at short intervals. The infant death-rate on the island of St. Kilda has, consequently, been much reduced. The author suggests the use of a new iodin-preparation called loretin for dressing the cord. The powder is free from odor and is nonpoisonous.
Human Parasites.--Worms in the human body are of interest on account of the immense length some species attain, the anomalous symptoms which they cause, or because of their anomalous location and issue. According to modern writers the famous Viennese collection of helminths contains chains of tenia saginata 24 feet long. The older reports, according to which the taenia solium (i.e., generally the taenia saginata) grew to such lengths as 40, 50, 60, and even as much as 800 yards, are generally regarded as erroneous. The observers have apparently taken the total of all the fragments of the worm or worms evacuated at any time and added them, thus obtaining results so colossal that it would be impossible for such an immense mass to be contained in any human intestine.
The name solium has no relation to the Latin solus, or solium. It is quite possible for a number of tapeworms to exist simultaneously in the human body. Palm mentions the fact of four tapeworms existing in one person; and Mongeal has made observations of a number of cases in which several teniae existed simultaneously in the stomach. David speaks of the expulsion of five teniae by the ingestion of a quantity of sweet wine. Cobbold reports the case of four simultaneous tapeworms; and Aguiel describes the case of a man of twenty-four who expelled a mass weighing a kilogram, 34.5 meters long, consisting of several different worms. Garfinkel mentions a case which has been extensively quoted, of a peasant who voided 238 feet of tapeworms, 12 heads being found. Laveran reports a case in which 23 teniae were expelled in the same day. Greenhow mentions the occurrence of two teniae mediocanellata.
The size of a tapeworm in a small child is sometimes quite surprising. Even the new-born have exhibited signs of teniae, and Haussmann has discussed this subject. Armor speaks of a fully-matured tapeworm being expelled from a child five days old. Kennedy reports cases in which tapeworms have been expelled from infants five, and five
Infantile scurvy, or Barlow's disease, has lately attracted marked attention, and is interesting for the numerous extravasations and spontaneous hemorrhages which are associated with it. A most interesting collection of specimens taken from the victims of Barlow's disease were shown in London in 1895.
In an article on the successful preventive treatment of tetanus neonatorum, or the "scourge of St. Kilda," of the new-born, Turner says the first mention of trismus nascentium or tetanus neonatorum was made by Rev. Kenneth Macaulay in 1764, after a visit to the island of St. Kilda in 1758. This gentleman states that the infants of this island give up nursing on the fourth or fifth day after birth; on the seventh day their gums are so clinched together that it is impossible to get anything down their throats; soon after this they are seized with convulsive fits and die on the eighth day. So general was this trouble on the island of St. Kilda that the mothers never thought of making any preparation for the coming baby, and it was wrapped in a dirty piece of blanket till the ninth or tenth day, when, if the child survived, the affection of the mother asserted itself. This lax method of caring for the infant, the neglect to dress the cord, and the unsanitary condition of the dwellings, make it extremely probable that the infection was through the umbilical cord. All cases in which treatment was properly carried out by competent nurses have survived. This treatment consisted in dressing the cord with iodoform powder and antiseptic wool, the breast-feeding of the baby from the first, and the administration of one-grain doses of potassium bromid at short intervals. The infant death-rate on the island of St. Kilda has, consequently, been much reduced. The author suggests the use of a new iodin-preparation called loretin for dressing the cord. The powder is free from odor and is nonpoisonous.
Human Parasites.--Worms in the human body are of interest on account of the immense length some species attain, the anomalous symptoms which they cause, or because of their anomalous location and issue. According to modern writers the famous Viennese collection of helminths contains chains of tenia saginata 24 feet long. The older reports, according to which the taenia solium (i.e., generally the taenia saginata) grew to such lengths as 40, 50, 60, and even as much as 800 yards, are generally regarded as erroneous. The observers have apparently taken the total of all the fragments of the worm or worms evacuated at any time and added them, thus obtaining results so colossal that it would be impossible for such an immense mass to be contained in any human intestine.
The name solium has no relation to the Latin solus, or solium. It is quite possible for a number of tapeworms to exist simultaneously in the human body. Palm mentions the fact of four tapeworms existing in one person; and Mongeal has made observations of a number of cases in which several teniae existed simultaneously in the stomach. David speaks of the expulsion of five teniae by the ingestion of a quantity of sweet wine. Cobbold reports the case of four simultaneous tapeworms; and Aguiel describes the case of a man of twenty-four who expelled a mass weighing a kilogram, 34.5 meters long, consisting of several different worms. Garfinkel mentions a case which has been extensively quoted, of a peasant who voided 238 feet of tapeworms, 12 heads being found. Laveran reports a case in which 23 teniae were expelled in the same day. Greenhow mentions the occurrence of two teniae mediocanellata.
The size of a tapeworm in a small child is sometimes quite surprising. Even the new-born have exhibited signs of teniae, and Haussmann has discussed this subject. Armor speaks of a fully-matured tapeworm being expelled from a child five days old. Kennedy reports cases in which tapeworms have been expelled from infants five, and five