Transactions of the Annual Meeting Volume . 5 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1909 Excerpt: ...involvement. Then, again, it is noticed that the index is changed at different hours of the day, and also according to whether the patient be bed-fast or able to get about and take some light exercise. Another variable index (though the normal is regarded as 1.0) is the one usually noticed in diseases of the eyeball, in which cases the index is usually above 1.0, as 1.3 and 1.5. Allen explains this on the ground that the circulation of the eyeball is so poor and the infection so localized that the very minute doses of toxin are absorbed and act exactly like repeated injections of small doses of tuberculin--so small that the protective mechanism of the body is not exhausted. Allen summarizes the indices as follows in pulmonary phthisis: above 1.o in slight early cases; variable in acute cases; below 1.o in chronic cases. It is obvious that in the matter of diagnosis of tuberculosis no reliance can be placed upon a single determination. At least several indices should be obtained and recorded, and these at different hours and under different circumstances and environments. The test cannot very easily be carried out by the busy practising physician, but in institutions with well-equipped laboratory apparatus, together with painstaking assistants, the indices may prove of interest and value. Tuberculin.--As regards the results obtained by the use of tuberculin, observers and clinicians are again at variance as to the value of this test. At first used as a subcutaneous reagent, it has now been applied cutaneously and instilled directly into the conjunctiva. Cutaneously it has been used by rubbing the tuberculin mixed with lanolin, and also by first scarifying the area and applying a solution of tuberculin to this area. According to WolffEisner, the ophthalmic re...