A MYSTERIOUS DISEASE.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 797, 21 April 1910, Page 4

A MYSTERIOUS DISEASE.

■— —+. . , NO MEANS OF DIAGNOSING IT. '" (By Telesraph.-Snecial Correspondent.) ! ' ,;.. Christchurch, April 20. That mysterious disease, status lymphaHcus; which still puzzles doctors was declared yesterday to have been the of the diath at Timaru of a young maTnarued liric Cameron who died the nrevious day while under chloroform. It that the deceased. had been Sully examined before given the anaesthetic, and that there was no apparent reason why ho should not be doctor who made the postmortem examination of tho body said he found the deceased to have been well. nounsh°d, and apparently a healthy young man. The internal organs, heart and lungs, were .quite sound, but there was present a thymus gland. This gland was. no. prosent in a normal- healthy adult. It was nresent at birth, but shrunk at the ago of twelve months... There was also enlargement of the spleen of tho thyroid and of tho glands in the •.mesentery. These conditions were present in . the disease known as status- lymphaticus, which gave rise to sudden death on any occasion when some gross interference with tho ordinary balance of life was made. It had been found in a large proportion of the cases of sudden death in apparently healthy individuals. Somo authorities went so far as to say that to administer an anaesthetic to a man with status lymphaticus meant ahnost certain death. The disease had never been recognised during life-time, and there were no means of diagnosing it. He attributed death to status lymphaticus, hastened by the administration of chloroform. Any snddon shock might havo caused the death of tho deceased at any time. Tho thymus gland weighed 497 grains, and it was the main feature of the disease .from which tho deceased suffered. Tho coroner returned a verdict in with-the modteahOTltfoMa.