Page 241 - My FlipBook

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adjacent external cellular substance hard and swelled—large
gangrenous spots in the inside of the cheeks or lips, occa-
sionally extending quite through to the outer surface—a total
incapacity to sleep or to take the least food—fever—a swelled
abdomen and diarrhosea.
Dissection.—The inspection of the body after death had
never thrown much light on this obscure affection.
Pathology.—The nature and production of this disease are
certainly very obscure. We may, however, as
in other
branches of knowledge, attempt
to record and develope
what knowledge we possess respecting it, carefully separa-
ting truth and reason from conjecture. We have already
said, that
its access was very frequently preceded by no
marks of visible disease, or at
least, none that attracted at-
tention. The
little subjects were, apparently, in merely a
drooping or enfeebled state.
In other instances, the ulcera-
tion follows a common remittent or intermittent fever
; inso-
much that, at one time, whenever a child was brought to the
nursery for fever, it was expected, as a matter of course, that
his mouth would become sore.
In other cases, as we have
already had occasion to say, it is quite possible that a con-
cealed " inward fever" may have existed
; and this is rendered
losing
the more probable from the circumstance of their
their appetites.
In the instance where the body was opened,
we have seen that the original disease was hepatization of
the lungs, and yet it is quite probable, that this affection had
caused, as it often does, that species of disease, which a rap-
idly spreading pathology refers to a slow inflammation of the
stomach and intestines.
With regard to marks of this last
not having been detected by me, it
is evident that I am in
the same
situation with a very numerous body of other
observers.