A Note and a Question on So-Called Surgical Scarlet Fever.

Abstract

one afternoon, in a hurry, to see her. On arrival, I saw again, to my intense chagrin, the spectral ghastly grin, maniacal rolling eye, and the furtive glance so well remembered; and though, as yet, the shouting demeanour was absent, there was the whispered entreaty for morphia, which she had not used for more than eighteen months. As if this were not discouragement enough, 1 discovered, upon vaginal examination, that the stem pessary which she continued to wear was not this time out of order. It was in perfect apposition, and erect in attitude. Independent of the treatment by pessary, nothing but morphia had been found able to moderate the violence of these outbreaks; and the employment of morphia I had rigidly forbidden on account of its pernicious effects on her constitution, moral and physical. The day was far advanced and night coming on, with the prospect of the household being turned into a veritable pandemonium. On casting about for some cause for this unpleasant return of her tormentor, I learned that the menses had been rather suddenly stopped by a chill. The left inguinal region was tender to the touch, whilst the left ovary, per vaginam, was felt to be swollen, and the slightest pressure over it was acutely painful to the sufferer. Here, therefore, appeared to me sufficient cause for the nervine disturbance. At least, careful inquiry could suggest no other. Whilst standing by the bedside, watching the vagaries of the patient, in a thoroughly crestfallen mood, the idea of digitalis