noun
definition
A serious infectious disease which causes inflammation of mucous membranes of the upper respiratory tract caused by Corynebacterium diphtheriae.
Examples of diphtheria in a Sentence
The vexed question of the diagnosis of diphtheria is now a thing of the past.
In the 1920s, we got a vaccine for diphtheria, pertussis, tuberculosis, and tetanus.
Thus, to mention examples, diphtheria toxin produces inflammatory oedema which may be followed by necrosis; dead tubercle bacilli give rise to a tubercle-like nodule, &c. Furthermore, a bacillus may give rise to more than one toxic body, either as stages in one process of change or as distinct products.
Thus the organisms of suppuration, tubercle, glanders, diphtheria, typhoid fever, cholera, tetanus, and others were identified, and their relationship to the individual diseases established.
Thus paralysis following diphtheria is in all probability due to a different toxin from that which causes the acute symptoms of poisoning or possibly to a modification of it sometimes formed in specially large amount.
Thus in cholera the bacteria are practically confined to the intestine, in diphtheria to the region of the false membrane, in tetanus to some wound.
Diphtheria is a reportable disease in many countries in the world.
Quite irrespective of the nature of the anatomical lesion, the finding of the diphtheria bacillus on the part affected and the inoculability of this upon a suitable fresh soil are the sole means by which the diagnosis can be made certain.
In 1870 Pasteur had proved that a disease of silkworms was due to an organism of the nature of a bacterium; and in 1871 Oertel showed that a Micrococcus already known to exist in diphtheria is intimately concerned in producing that disease.
In the case of diphtheria Sidney Martin obtained toxic albumoses in the spleen, which he considered were due to the digestive action of an enzyme formed by the bacillus in the membrane and absorbed into the circulation.
Thus in diphtheria changes in both nerve cells and nerve fibres have been found, and in tetanus minute alterations in the nucleus and protoplasm of nerve cells.
In the case of diphtheria the antitoxic power of the serum may reach Boo units per cubic centimetre, or even more.
Such serums are injected subcutaneously in diphtheria, tetanus, streptococcic infections, plague, snake-poisoning, cholera and other similar diseases.
The case fatality ratio for respiratory diphtheria is 5-10% .
Diphtheria is also spread by droplet infection through close personal contact.
Of such are tetanus and diphtheria, now known to be due to the establishment from without of a local microbic infection, from which focus a toxin is diffused to the nervous matter.
The grave palsies in such diseases as influenza, diphtheria, beriberi, or ensuing on the absorption of lead, are in the main not central, but due to a symmetrical peripheral neuritis.
Hospitals.-The Metropolitan Asylums Board, though established in 1867 purely as a poor-law authority for the relief of the sick, insane Metro- and infirm paupers, has become a central hospital authority for infectious diseases, with power to receive into politan its hospitals persons, who are not paupers, suffering from Asylums fever, smallpox or diphtheria.
She returned to Darmstadt in the autumn, and on the 8th of November 1878 her daughter, Princess Victoria, was attacked by diphtheria.
Epidemic outbreaks of other diseases - for instance, cholera, diphtheria and typhoid fever - are often preceded and followed by the prevalence of mild illness of an allied type; and t he true significance of this fact is one of the most important problems in epidemiology.
This is most commonly and successfully used in the treatment of diphtheria.
The serum, the strength of which has thus been ascertained, is distributed in bottles and injected in the proper quantity under the skin of children suffering from diphtheria.
Yersin has prepared a serum from horses in the same way as diphtheria anti-toxin, and this is said to have a curative action during the attack.
A similar result was also obtained in the case of diphtheria.
In 1891, Emil von Behring produced an antitoxin from the blood of animals for curing diphtheria.
These include plague, cholera, diphtheria, yellow fever, dengue and TB.
Product Overview TransMID TM is a modified diphtheria toxin conjugated to transferrin.
A year later Friedrich Loffler isolated and grew it, proving that it caused diphtheria by injecting it into various animals.
The vaccine is designed to prevent diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis, hepatitis B and polio.
Anyone catching diphtheria will be hospitalized immediately and will probably be put on a respirator to help them breathe.
The most common form of non-respiratory diphtheria is cutaneous diphtheria; other forms include conjunctival, otic and genital lesions.
And health was also not improved e.g. diphtheria and scarlet fever increased.
The Committee was informed that the Department was having increasing difficulty in getting supplies of single low dose diphtheria vaccine.
This document describes what causes calf diphtheria, clinical signs and symptoms, diagnosis, available treatments, and prevention and control measures.
Once inside a cell the diphtheria toxin interferes with protein synthesis which ultimately kills the cancer cell.
These pediatric formulations have the same amount of tetanus toxoid as adult formulations, but contain between three and four times more diphtheria toxoid.
Medical science further owes to him the classification of new growths on a natural histological basis, the elucidation of leucaemia, glioma and lardaceous tumours, and detailed investigations into many diseases - tuberculosis, pyaemia, diphtheria, leprosy, typhus, &c. Among the books he published on pathological and medical subjects may be mentioned Vorlesungen fiber Pathologic, the first volume of which was the Cellular-pathologic (1858), and the remaining three Die Krankhaften Geschwiilste (1863-67); Handbuch der speziellen Pathologic and Therapie (3 vols., 1854-62), in collaboration with other German surgeons; Gesammelte Abhandlungen zur wissenschaftlichen Medizin (1856); Vier Reden fiber Leben and Kranksein (1862); Untersuchungen fiber die Entwicklung des Schlidelgrundes (1857); Lehre von den Trichinen (1865); Ueber den Hunger-typhus (1868); and Gesammelte Abhandlungen aus dem Gebiete der afentlichen Medizin and der Seuchenlehre (1879).
When we consider that tuberculosis, diphtheria, cholera, tetanus, typhoid fever, anthrax, malaria and a host of other contagious diseases have each been proved to be of parasitical origin, an idea may be conve y ed of the range of the subject.
The rapid diagnosis of diphtheria, by recognizing its bacillus, has enabled the practitioner of medicine to commence the treatment early, and it has also enabled the medical officer of health to step in and insist on the isolation of affected persons before the disease has had time to spread.
One of the most remarkable practical outcomes of germ-pathology, however, has been the production of the immunized sera now employed so extensively in the treatment of diphtheria and other contagious diseases.
Among these should be mentioned John Fothergill (1712-1780), who investigated the "putrid sore throat" now called diphtheria, and the form of neuralgia popularly known as tic douloureux.
Vaccinations are an effective method of preventing certain disease such as polio, tetanus, pertussis, diphtheria, influenza, hepatitis b, and pneumococcal infections.
The vaccine used in the United States is actually multiple diphtheria and tetanus toxoids combined with acellular pertussis (DTaP).
Diphtheria is a potentially fatal disease that usually involves the nose, throat, and air passages, but may also infect the skin.
Routine vaccination has almost eradicated diphtheria from the United States, but it is still seen in many parts of the world.
Diphtheria and tetanus toxoids and acellular pertussis, taken together, provides immunity against diphtheria, tetanus, and whooping cough.
These organisms include non-hemolytic and alpha-hemolytic streptococci, some Neisseria species, staphylococci, diphtheria and hemophilus organisms, pneumococci, yeasts, and Gram-negative rods.
Besides other varieties of strep organisms, these organisms may include Candida albicans, which can cause thrush; Corynebacterium diphtheriae, which can cause diphtheria; and Bordetella pertussis, which can cause whooping cough.
Vaccinations given in childhood have made diphtheria very rare in the United States.
Other types of bacteria are also occasionally responsible for this infection, including some types of Streptococcus bacteria and the bacteria responsible for causing diphtheria.