tions of any kind favour the invasion of this as of all similar visitations, and that diphtheria, like simple fever, may assume a low or, as it may he called, a malignant type, proportionate to the intensity of these collateral causes. It is understood that in some localities, and among some families, diphtheria has been mild and tractable, the false membrane being readily checked, and the patient never falling into the fearful debility exhibited in the under-fed tenants of ill-ventilated and stench-surrounded habitations; and it is not too much to attribute the difference in the original intensity of the malady to the favorable sanitary conditions of the one class, and the wretchedness of the other.
Treatment.
Like all diseases which have from time appalled by their severity or perplexed by their novelty, diphtheria has been met by a variety of treatment, and it is only of late that anything like unanimity on the subject has prevailed. If we read through the various articles on the subject, from Bretonneau’s treatise downwards, we shall find that in the earlier invasions of the disease an activity of treatment prevailed, which recent experience has abnegated. Leeches to the angles of the jaws, blisters and rapid mercurialization, combined with certain local applications to the pharynx, formed the treatment at first advised. Mercurialization in particular was much lauded, and, indeed, looked upon as the sheet anchor especially in the croupal variety.
It was first employed in diphtherite by Dr. William
