Page:Transactions of the Provincial Medical and Surgical Association, volume 1.djvu/128

 put on the form of an epidemic. During the various years in which measles have prevailed among the children of this neighbourhood, I have had frequent occasions to remark, that the fatality was very trifling during the early stage, where the eruption was freely developed; but where that was not the case, or where there was a premature retrocession of the eruption, the respiration often assumed a croupy sound, accompanied with a dry cough. And this was sometimes the case, even when the little patient had passed favourably through an attack of the measles. The plan of treatment was varied according to circumstances; in some leeches were found necessary, in others external applications, such as the spir. terebinth, to the neck; and where there was reason to believe the development of the rash was deficient, to the calves of the legs.

In some of the cases of that singular form of laryngeal spasm, described by Dr. Marshall Hall, little organic change was discernible on examining the fatal cases after death. The abdominal and thoracic viscera presented no morbid appearance; the mucous membrane of the larynx, trachea, and bronchi, indicated no structural disease. In some there was a turgid state of the cerebral vessels, and of the lungs, but this was not an essential part of the disease, but arising wholly from the violence of the spasm and the struggle for breath; just as is the case in hooping cough, where, after death, both the brain and the lungs exhibit organic changes, from the same cause. It has been my lot to witness several marked instances of this singular species of convulsion, which appears to consist, primarily, in spasm, occurring