Page:Archives of dermatology (IA archivesofdermat1187unse).pdf/8

j LEWIS SMITH/.

2

an entirely new disease with Those who think us.

occasionally seen isolated cases of it

that they have

previously to the recent epi-

demic, evidently refer to roseola.

This epidemic of rotheln commenced in close of 1873, April, 1874,

and attained

when

The

out May.

maximum

near the

prevalence in March and

declined, occasional cases occurring through-

it

first

its

New York

case which I observed occurred in the middle

New

of December, in Seventy-first street, being in the suburbs of

A

York, on the north.

few weeks

later,

cases were so

numerous

in

the thickly settled portions of the city as to attract the attention

many

of

physicians.

It

was evident that a disease had appeared

with which we were not familiar, and as the eruption occurred in points, or small circumscribed patches,

was, I think, usually

it

designated by the physician, in want of a more accurate name,

Those

epidemic roseola, or was spoken of as a spurious measles. physicians the

who were

familiar with foreign medical literature

saw

resemblance between these cases and those of rotheln as

described by British and continental observers, but in certain at least of the foreign cases the duration of the rash

seven days (Liveing, Lancet, March

and Library, May,

But

the fourth day.

to

be

and Medical News

1874), whereas in the cases in

commonly disappeared by was not

14, 1874,

was said

New York

it

discrepancy

this

sufficient to invalidate the belief in the identity of the

New York

disease

with the

foreign

rotheln.

It

was

readily

explained by the difference in the seasons in which the cases occurred, for Liveing observed his cases in June and July, and the greater the external heat the longer the duration of the eruption, as

we

will see.

Between the middle of December and the

first

of

May

observed and treated this malady in eighteen families.

I

had

Cases

occurred in three other families living in the same houses with

some of those which

I attended,

and

as they

were

fully

and

clearly

described to me, so that there could be no doubt as to their nature, I have included

them

in

were observed in the twenty-one

my

statistics.

families.

Forty-eight cases

During May, when the