1885 v. 28 - Lane Medical Library Digital Document Repository

New Books. 35
toiiccs of Boohs, |§3tnp(jlct<
Diseases of the Nose. By CLINTON WAGNER, M. D., Professor of Diseases
of the Nose and Throat in the New York Post Graduate Medical School,
etc., etc. pp. 217, 8vo. New York : Bermingham & ,Co. A. L. Bancroft
& Co., San Francisco.
The first twenty-four pages of the work treat of the anatomy
of the Nose ; the next succeeding fifteen pages treat of its physiology,
and the following sixteen pages to the instruments useful
to the Rhinoscopist. The illustrations are all good, and are said
to be taken from actual cases. The anatomical and physiological
descriptions leave nothing to be desired. The diseases of the Nose
are classified by the author as follows :
Rhinitis CatarrhaJis Acuta, Rhinitis Catarrhalis Chronica, Rhinitis
Catarrhalis Chronica Hypertrophica, and Rhinitis Chronica
Ulcerosa,
The remainder consists of a description of the various tumors
and abnormal growths affecting the structures of the nose, which,
however, are common to any of the other mucous membranes.
As a multiplication of names and terms is always undesirable,
it would have been better to have confined the description of the
diseases affecting the mucous membrane of the nose to the simple
term Rhinitis Catarrhalis, and its various stages. An acute catarrhal
Ehinitis(to use the term Rhinitis without the qualifying catarrhal,
as the author does, is misleading, when only applied to a diseased
condition of the mucous lining of the nose) Coryza, or " cold
in the head " is described, quoting from Woakes' Naso-Pharyngeal
Catarrh as " vessel distension, occasional swelling, dryness of the
epithelial covering, then effusion of serum, which carries with it
the mucus also found in excess in the follicular structure of the
membrane, and later, also the discarded epithelium from the different
strata, in varying stages of growth and degeneration. This
constitutes the flux of an ordinary Catarrh, which, under favor^
able circumstances, rapidly ends in resolution, that is, in the restoration
of vessel tonus and consequent cessation of symptoms.
The treatment recommended offers nothing original, and is that
commonly employed by the profession, i. e., Dover's Powder on
retiring, saline cathartics, snuffs composed of morphine, bismuth,,
starch, oxide of zinc, etc., etc, confinement in a warni room for a
day or two, etc.