A MYSTERIOUS AILMENT.

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1809, 23 July 1913, Page 10

A MYSTERIOUS AILMENT.

NEW DISEASE IN BRITAIN. MEDICAL MEN AT A LOSS. A mysterious and as yet undiagnosed throat complaint has been causing medical men ill various parts of Great Britain serious anxiety in the last fortnight before the last mail left London. The chief symptom is a filmy exudate on the tonsils or back of the throat. Tho earliest cases were mistaken for diphtheria, but recent bacteriological examinations have failed to show the presence of the true diphtheria germ iu any of the victims' throats. So rapid has been tho spread of the "new disease" in the west of England that a well-known physician askwi the "Daily Mail" to. publish the following warning to the public:— "Sir,—May I, through your columns, draw the attention of the general public to an epidemic of "throat-and-neck" trouble which is spreading over England? The symptoms are varied, but generally include an affection of the tonsils varying from a slight rash to what looks like the worst form of diphtheria, and a swelling of the glands in the neck, sometimes to a gveater extent than is seen in the most severe cases of mumps.

"The complications include severe erysipelas, swellings in the joints (blood poisoning?), very high temperature (10G deg. to 107deg. F.), and heart failure, among many others less important. "There have been some deaths from this disease and several nearly fatal cases. It is very important that, people who acquire the disease should remain at home and rest until they know what form it is going to take. . , "I see by 'Le Matin' that Paris is undergoing a similar 'visitation,' and that .the death-rate thcro among children from the disease is 15 per oent. to 20 per cent, of those affected, which, as that paper says, is worse than the mortality from diphtheria-before the days of antitoxin." Inquiries among medical men in other parts of the country revealed that the mysterious ailment had been noted in the previous two months in such widely separated centres as Winohester, Hastings, Birmingham, Cheltenham, and Portsmouth. At Birmingham, according to a local doctor who treated several cases, the appearance of a dull, blotchy rash first led to a diagnosis of measles, which was afterwards proved by the subsequent course of the disease to be erroneous. Two cases of the mysterious ailment,' one of which ended fatally, occurred recently At Portsmouth. The patient who succumbed was treated privately by a local doctor. Ho had a sore throat and swollen glands and a fihny matter formed over the tonsils. It was at first thought that the disease was diphtheria and a portion' of the exudate from the throat was forwarded to the Clincal Research Association in London for examination, but no trace of the diphtheria bacillus could be" found and the nature of tho complaint remains a mystery. A similar case has also been treated in the Portsmouth Hospital. : AVhile refusing actually to giro it a name, a' London consultant, after considering all the .symptoms described, was of, the opinion that the mysterious ailment will eventually prove to be a nontypical variety of scarlet fever or measles. "The presence of the streptococci. (the common germ found in abscesses) in several of the cases rather suggests scarlet fever," the doctor observed. "The fact that in the majority of cases little or no rash has been noted in no way disproves scarlet fever, as the iasli in niild cases is often overlooked.