Erysipelas: with special reference to old and new treatment

Abstract

Much has been written and continues to be written regarding the treatment of erysipelas, each new remedy enjoying a passing popularity, only to be discarded in favour of the next. The mere multiplicity of methods itself testifies to their inefficacy, or their lack of universal applicability, and indicates the need for further experiment.In a disease such as erysipelas, which is so uncertain in its duration, it is extremely difficult to assess the value of any particular mode of treatment, and still more difficult to construct convincing statistics. "Control cases" are of necessity under Suspicion, as no two cases can be expected to progress alike when untreated.In some of the cases under consideration, the disappearance of signs and symptoms may awell have been post hoc and not propter hoc; in others, in which it was possible to tackle only one section of the spreading edge, the constitutional disturbance continued although the local treatment appeared to be Successful where it was applied; in others the erysipelas was a complication of another infection, and any amelioration of symptoms which might have accrued from cessation of the former was obscu4 by a continuance of the latter.