YOL. XLVI.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 43 



0/ the Morbus Strangulat onus. By John Starr, M.D. N° 495, p. 435. 

 Dr. S. mentions, that there had been raging in the neighbourhood of Liskard 

 for some time previous to Jan. 10, 1749, (the date when this account was written) 

 a disease formidable in its advances, and fatal in its consequences, viz. an occult an- 

 gina, called with some propriety morbus strangulatorius. Dr.Fothergill's sore throat 

 with ulcers, and Dr. Cotton's St. Alban's scarlet fever, &c. are in his opinion but 

 its shadows. None practising in those parts have reason to boast their success in 

 attempting its cure. The way to cure disorders is first to know them. Where 

 the deviations of nature are hidden, where we cannot discern how and in what 

 manner the distressed functions suffer, the art of healing must have its difficulties. 

 The sudden, and indeed unexpected death of some patients greatly alarmed him* 

 He concluded the cause deeper than at first imagined. The case herewith sent, 

 confirmed his conjecture. It is extraordinary and uncommon. Does (he asks) 

 medical history afford its like? it is possible it may, but it had not fallen within 

 the compass of his reading, or study. Tulpius's Observation, lib. iv. cap. ix. falls 

 vastly short of it. 



The morbus strangulatorius, with great propriety and justice thus denominated, 

 had a few years before reigned in several parts of Cornwall with great severity. 

 Many parishes had felt its cruelty, and whole families of children, whence its 

 contagious nature was but too evident, had, by its successive attacks, been swept 

 off. Few, very few, had escaped. The disorder did not appear with the same 

 train of symptoms in every subject. On the contrary, a vast difference was ob- 

 servable; but then whatever, or how various soever, the symptoms might be, 

 there was a certain degree of malignity, or signs of a putrid disposition of the 

 juices, in all. 



Some, he was informed, had had corrosive pustules in the groin, and about 

 the anus, eating quick and deep, and threatening mortification, even in the be« 

 ginning. Others after a few days illness had numbers of the worst and deepest 

 petechiae break out in various parts of their body. Such he had not seen. Many 

 on the first attack had complained of swellings of the glands, as tonsils, parotids, 

 submaxillary and sublingual glands, but frequently of no great importance. A 

 few, from an internal tumour, had a large external oedematous swelling of the 

 subcutaneous and cellular tunic, from the chin down to the thyroid gland, and 

 up the side of the face. One such he was concerned with, the tumour broke in 

 the fauces ; but, instead of a laudable pus, some ounces of a coftee-coloured ex 

 ceedingly fetid matter were spit off. The man recovered. As respiration only 

 suffered here by pressure, he rather chose to call this a malignant angina, than 

 the true morbus strangulatorius. 



Not a few early in the disorder had gangrenous sloughs formed in their 



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