Miller, Alexander Auld

2019-02-15T14:36:58Z

2019-02-15T14:36:58Z

1935

During the past 70 years the attention of surgeons and physicians has been frequently called to the fact that recent wounds, both surgical and traumatic, are liable to be followed by an eruption which closely resembles the exanthem of scarlet fever. This association led to the belief that in some way the eruptions were caused by the trauma, but as to the nature of the eruptions, there has been much difference of opinion. In the seventies and eighties of last century when the subject enjoyed a season of popularity, the preponderance of opinion was in favour of a scarlatinal origin and the condition came to be recognised as "surgical scarlatina," a term which has persisted in the literature. It must be admitted that there is no universal agreement as to the scarlatinal origin. Certain anomalies and variations in the eruption and in the constitutional symptoms have raised doubts in the minds of certain observers and the whole question still rests on very debatable ground. The position is distinctly unsatisfactory and the urgent need is to determine the intrinsic nature of those enanthemata. This can be done by the application of modern methods of investigations. Bacteriological and serological weapons have been employed to such a limited extent that it is impossible to reach any conclusions. The main object of the study embodied in this thesis, is to supplement and amplify the investigations already made and to bring the socalled "surgical scarlatina" into line with acknowledged scientific facts and thereby demonstrate its intrinsic nature.

http://hdl.handle.net/1842/35327

The University of Edinburgh

Annexe Thesis Digitisation Project 2019 Block 22

Scarlatina chirurgica: a historical, clinical and bacteriologic study

Thesis or Dissertation

Doctoral

MD Doctor of Medicine