Note 19 — PART FIRST. OF INFLAMMATION. (continued 4)

[For some very interesting examples of this hemorrhagic tendency, the reader is referred to Mr. Wardrop’s excellent little work on Bloodletting, and to the first volume of my Elements of Pathological Anatomy. A few years ago a case came under my notice in which fatal hemorrhage was caused by lancing the gums over the two central incisors of the upper-jaw, in a male child between five and six months old. He was labouring at the time under an attack of cholera, so prevalent in our early summer months; and the day after the operation purpuric spots appeared in different parts of the body, the largest being situated on the abdomen and the scalp, just behind the ear. The bleeding was at length arrested by the twisted suture, made by transfixing the gum with three very small needles, the points of which were broken off close to the jaw, and the threads applied in the usual manner. Notwithstanding this, the child died exhausted on the fifth day, hemorrhage having, in the meanwhile, taken place from the stomach and bowels. It may be proper to add, that the infant had been delicate from his birth, and that there was no hereditary predisposition to the singular affection which carried him off.—ED.]