Page:Transactions of the Provincial Medical and Surgical Association, volume 1.djvu/111

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.

at least, has been the case in those morbid preparations of this disease which I have inspected, as well as in the scrofulous joints of such patients as have undergone amputation in our infirmary.

Sometimes, along with an enlarged joint, we find associated (in scrofulous children) a simultaneous participation of other structures in the disease, such as glandular enlargement; and the lymphatic glands of the neck occasionally undergo scrofulous disorganization. At other times, the abdominal viscera are the seat of scrofulous disease, along with the osseous structure. I may mention, as an example of such combination, the case of a child who is now an in-patient of the infirmary, in whom there was a tumefaction of the ankle joint, which first made its appearance above a year ago, and which, for some months back, has discharged matter. Since the commencement of the discharge, the functions of the alimentary canal have been frequently disordered, and the stools of an unhealthy appearance; but a few weeks ago she began to experience deep-seated pain in the cavity of the abdomen, which is now tumefied and tense, with a sense of fluctuation. In other parts of her body some emaciation has taken place. The countenance is altered; the eyes seem glassy; the nose sharpened, and the cheeks of a marble whiteness, unless when they are flushed with fever. There are other symptoms, also, which make it extremely probable that the mesenteric glands are in a state of active disease, and there is every reason to fear an unfavourable termination of the case. Lloyd, in his treatise on scrofula, gives an instance of a child, who, during dentition, became diseased, emaciated,