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these tables; and has latterly, under its somewhat newly imposed
name of Diphtheria, excited considerable uneasiness in the
public mind. It has prevailed for a year or two past to a very
serious extent in many parts of the country, and during the last
twelvemonths has made its appearance, though with no very
remarkable severity, in London. Camberwell has not escaped its
influence, and I feel it my duty therefore to make some observations
in regard to it.
The disease, which is new only as regards its name, has no
doubt been confounded in byegone times (as, indeed, it is frequently
even now) with scarlet fever, with quinsey, and with
croup ; but it has been recognised in France, where it appears to
have been extremely prevalent, as a distinct form of disease for
at least thirty or forty years. In our own country it has been
much less common, but has certainly constituted several epidemics
of what at the time have been regarded as malignant quinsey or
sore throat, and has furnished occasional isolated cases of which
I have myself seen two or three in former years. We have lately
experienced, and have not yet escaped from, an unusually severe,
prolonged, and wide spread epidemic invasion of the kind. The
disease, though not scarlet fever, has a very close resemblance
to that malady. It begins with slight feverishness and soreness
of the throat; and very soon a whitish exudation, or kind of
scab, looking something like wash-leather, forms upon the tonsils
ar.d spreads over the neighbouring parts. If the disease
progresses favourably the exudation begins after a few days
to separate from the mucous membrane, soon becomes wholly
detached, and the patient though generally much enfeebled
becomes convalescent. If, on the other hand, the malady takes
a less favourable turn, it may produce serious or fatal results in
more ways than one; the inflammation of the throat may extend
deeply, and produce mortification of the tonsils; the washleather-like
exudation may spread, and passing down the gullet