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small artery of the brain. This causes the part of the brain supplied by the
artery to lose its function and become useless. It can affect the patient by
loss of speech, loss of feeling or numbness in the arms or legs, or weakness or
slight paralysis. Sometimes there is dizziness, confusion or slight nausea.
Often, if the occurrence takes place in bed during the night, the patient may be
unaware that anything has happened. The change in the personality is noted
by the patient's relatives. In a man there may be changes in character,
temperament and ability; he may become irritable and useless in his business;
he may have lost his cleanliness and neatness. Relatives may suspect something
like this has occurred when they notice a sudden change in the personality of
someone dear to them.
THE DANGEROUS STAPHYLOCOCCI
What They Are.
The organism staphylococcus has been talked about so much this last few
years that I should think most people are now familiar with it. It is the
organism which causes boils and carbuncles, septic spots, whitlows, abscesses,
running sores, severe infections of wounds, pneumonia, generalised septicaemia,
the dreaded puerperal fever, and sometimes worst of all severe food poisoning.
A few months ago some of my colleagues in the health service and I had lunch
in a public restaurant; towards evening we all of us were feeling dizzy, attacked
with severe nausea and vomiting, were up most of the night with indescribable
wretchedness, unfit for work the next day, and generally prostrate for about
48 hours. We had all of us stupidly eaten steak pie on a Monday which had
stood over the weekend since the previous Friday or Saturday. The weather
was warm and I assume that the meat had not been kept in a refrigerator.
Where They Are.
The staphylococci are with most of us all our lives. About half the
population carry the staphylococcus in the front part of the nose. The organisms
live there and breed and grow in the secretions of the nose. Babies acquire
them in the first week of life and continue to harbour them throughout life.
The staphylococcus is peculiar in that it can live in the nose for years without
causing distress or disease to its host; it can cause minor forms of disability
such as infected scratches or boils; it can produce a poison which we know
to be dangerous as food poisoning; it can cause all sorts of diseases from a
minor acute form as in the boil to a more severe generalised form as in
pneumonia or septicaemia; and it can become resistant to the anti-bacterial
drugs. The curious thing is the way these germs manifest one form of disease
at one time and another at a different time. About half the population are
persistent carriers of staphylococci in the nose, and about half are persistently
free from them. We read much of the danger of the development of drug
resistant staphylococci becoming more prevalent.
It is possible that there are more people alive today who are susceptible to
infection by the staphylococcus than there were in former times. The reason
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