DIPHTHERIA AND ANTITOXIN BY NESTOR TIRARD, M.D. LOND. FELLOW OF THE ROYAL COLLEGE OF PHYSICIANS; FELLOW OF KING'S COLLEGE, LONDON PHYSICIAN TO KING'S COLLEGE HOSPITAL, AND SENIOR PHYSICIAN TO THE EVELINA HOSPITAL FOR SICK CHILDREN LANE MEDICAL LIBRARY 17067 LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. LONDON, NEW YORK, AND BOMBAY 1897 All rights reserved L138 T59 1897 PREFACE THIS little book had its origin in sundry papers read before meetings of the British Medical Association in recent years. The complications and sequele were originally dealt with at Maidstone. The results of some of the earlier cases of treatment with antitoxin at the Evelina Hospital were detailed before the Clinical Society, and subsequently the notes of the cases appeared in the Lancet in January 1895. The time seems now to have arrived when it may be useful to summarise the results of the antitoxin treatment. Free use has therefore been made of the Reports of the Medical Superintendents of the Metropolitan Asylums Board, and of the Report to the American Pediatric Society, which confirm in the most conclusive way my own observations. Though statistics have been quoted from these Reports, which deal with large numbers, the cases detailed in the following pages are all selected from those which have been under my care. Antitoxin seems to have robbed diphtheria of most of its terror, and my experience, both in hospital work and in |