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DIPHTHERIA.
Of the ailments usually treated in an infectious diseases
hospital there is none which causes more anxiety to those
concerned in nursing and treatment than diphtheria and to
give a prognosis in any particular case is a hazard.
The milder cases if received in hospital in the early days
of the malady and given adequate dosage of antitoxin—that
is, dosage appropriate to the period of the affection—usually
proceed to complete recovery, leaving no permanent trace of
the malady. Even such cases require unremitting care and
experienced observation throughout their period of convalescence.
However, there come to hospital even mild cases of
diphtheria in which a diagnosis of the malady for one reason
or another has not been made until the toxin has become fixed
and had a definitely damaging effect on the circulatory or
nervous system, or both, and a long period of anxiety is the
result.