Southern Medical and Surgical Journal - Georgia Regents University

—Scrofula— its causes,[January,6. Scrofula and phthisis co-exist in the same family. Morethan half the scrofulous patients have parents or ancestors whodied of phthisis. Of 84 cases in the liospital of St. Louis, atParis, more than half had consumptive parents. All the patientsin the hospital at St. Louis who died of the various formsof scrofula, had tubercles in the lungs. They often recoverfrom the other forms of scrofula, and then die of phthisis ; andfor this reason the most experienced medical men are very cautiousill their mode of curing local scrofulous affections, for fearof metastasis to the lungs. They always endeavor to do it uponan alterative i. e., a constitutional principle ; so that the curemay be the effect of an improved constitution, and the improvedconstitution the effect of the treatment.7. Persons who are scrofulous in youth sometimes becomestrong after puberty ; but the taint remains, and the childrenare scrofulous.—The parents try to conceal the scrofula of theiryouth, which makes it difficult for the physician to trace theconstitution of the child.8. Persons who do not appear to be scrofulous themselves,but whose brothers or sisters are so, have scrofulous children.The family taint seems to pass through them to the children.We shall now endeavor to point out certain causes whichseem to originate scrofula, or the scrofulous constitution, orpoison, independent of hereditary taint.Cause I. The first cause is syphilis; which, in many cases^is obvious; and m others, when the parents conceal it, it canonly be inferred. If a parent has had both syphilis and scrofula,the poison is doubled. The eruptions, ophthalmia, ulcerations,and caries, of the two diseases, are often very similar ; but, assyphihs is cured by mercury, and scrofula not, the result oftreatment is a sure test of the nature of the disease. Syphilisisaccidental, contagious, and curable. Scrofula is constitutional,not contagions, and incurable, or, at least, difficult of cure.Scrofula always existed. Syphilis did not exist in Europe tillabout A. D. 1500. The disease derived from syphilitic parentsis not primary but secondary syphilis, syphilitic cachexia, orscrofula. Spain has been overrun by this disease subsequentto the introduction of syphilis. The antiphlogistic treatment ofsyphilis, instead of the mercurial, is a cause of scrofula, becausethe cure has not been radical.Cause 2. The second originating cause of scrofula is theexcessive abuse and indulgence of the sexual instinct. Oneinstance will illustrate the principle:—All the children of afamily had scrofulous affections : ha3moptysis, ophthalmia, pulmonarytubercles, worms. One little girl had abscess in theleft sub-maxillary region, was of pallid complexion, with large