On acute dilatation of the heart as a cause of death in scarlatinal dropsy / by James F. Goodhart.

  • Goodhart, James Frederic, 1845-1916.
Date:
[1880?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On acute dilatation of the heart as a cause of death in scarlatinal dropsy / by James F. Goodhart. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    CAUSE OF DEATH IN SCARLATINAL DROPSY. By JAMES E. GOODHART, M.D, Some time ago I met with two cases of sudden or compara- tively sudden death in the subjects of scarlatinal dropsy amongst my out-patients at the Evelina Hospital for Children, which were not to be explained satisfactorily by the modes of death which are most usual in that disease. Perhaps I ought to say the modes of death which are thought to be most usual, because I think that death in the manner which this paper records is not uncommon. I am not wrong in saying that death in scarlatinal dropsy is usually attributed to uraemic convulsions, to inflammation of the serous membranes of the thorax, or to oedema of the lungs, a part of the general anasar- cous condition which is not inaptly termed “waterlogging.” To these I would add acute dilatation of the left ventricle of the heart, which, I suspect, is not infrequent. The considera- tions which weigh writh me in putting the following cases on record are several. First, that the possibility of such a termi- nation is not sufficiently known. I do not say this of indi- vidual experience. Probably many are quite alive to the occurrence of sudden death from ventricular dilatation in acute nephritis, but it is not taught as one of the things generally