WILLIAM DOUGLASS ON THE FIRST REPORTED CASES OF SCARLET FEVER IN NEW ENGLAND, 1736

[摘要] In 1736, William Douglass (1691-1752) of Boston, wrote an excellent account of an epidemic of a "new" disease which he called angina ulcusculosa , yet his description of this "new epidemical eruptive fever" was the first adequate description of scarlet fever in English.1 Douglass's account was published twelve years before John Fothergill (1712-1780),2 the English physician, published his classic account of both diphtheria and scarlet fever, although Fothergill failed to differentiate between the two conditions.Douglass wrote:The first attack is somewhat of a chill or shivering; soon after follows Head ake or some other versatile spasmodick pains , as pain in the back, joints, side, etc; a vomiting or nausea, or in some constitutions, which are not easily provoked to vomit, only a certain uneasiness or sickness at Stomach; at the same time the Uvula , but chiefly the Tonsils, were tumified, inflamed and painful, with some white specks, then follows a flush in the Face and some miliary eruptions therewith a benign mild fever , the same efflorescence soon after appears on the neck, chest and extremities; the 3rd or 4th Day, Eruption is at the hight and well defined with fair intervals; the flushing goes off gradually with a general itching ; and in a Day or two more the cuticle scales or peels off, especially in the extremities: At the same time the cream coloured sloughs or specks in the Fauces become loose and [are] cast off ... The tongue from the beginning is furr'd as in a Mercurial Ptyalism , urine high coloured... in the whole course of the Distemper [there is] a very great prostration of strength and faintness...[and a] loss of en bon point .

[学科分类] 儿科学