On a case of staphylococcic infection / by Sir Lauder Brunton.

  • Brunton, Thomas Lauder, Sir, 1844-1916.
Date:
[1904]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: On a case of staphylococcic infection / by Sir Lauder Brunton. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    [Reprinted from St. Bartholomew’s Hospital Reports, Vol. XXXIX.] 1- ON A CASE OF STAPHYLOCOCCIC INFECTION. BY SiK LAUDER BRUNTON, M.D., F.R.S. I have thought that it might not be altogether uninteresting to the readers of the Reports to have the story of the illness which has kept me away from St. Bartholomew’s for more than a year. About the end of May 1902 I noticed one day upon my right index finger a small itching point, not larger than the point of a pin; the next day there was a small pustule upon the same position, but instead of the pustule going away when the pus was let out, it gradually grew larger and larger, and became converted into a somewhat large boil, which re- quired to be opened by my late colleague, Mr. Walsham. Several other boils formed upon the same hand, next upon the other hand, and then upon the nates. These were all char- acterised by one peculiarity, viz., that the pain in them was out of all proportion to the local manifestations. There seemed to be present two sorts of pain—one of them of a dull, heavy, burning character, the other sharp and stinging, exactly like the sting of a wasp. In making this comparison, I know pre- cisely what the sting of a wasp is like, because as a boy I have destroyed more than one wasp’s nest. In doing so I had occa- sion to experience exactly what the pain of the sting is, and the pain which was present in those boils was almost the same as the sting of one, or, rather, I should say, of several wasps, all stinging together. I noticed one curious thing, viz., that this stinging pain was apt to come on at the time when the alka- linity of the blood would be lessened by the absorption of acid from the stomach, for the pain became worse, as a rule, just about the time that the contents of the stomach would be undergoing absorption. We know that an acid is a most powerful irritant to nerves, and in the physiological laboratory, when one wishes to stimulate a nerve, acid is very often ap- plied. It occurred to me that the sharp stinging pain might