Leucocytosis is the name given to a condition of the blood in which the leucocytes or white corpuscles in the bloodplasma are increased in number. These leucocytes are minute protoplasmic cells, which have the power of movement and can pass out of the smallest capillary blood vessels into the surrounding tissues. They act as scavengers, and play an important part in the destruction and removal of bacteria in the body, a process known as phagocytosis.
The leucocytes are of different types, and normal blood contains a fairly constant proportion of each type. In infection or inflammation the leucocytes become greatly increased in number; the leucocytes which are killed in the attack on the bacteria form pus. In certain blood diseases, of which leukaemia is the best example, the increase is also often enormous, even reaching to 80,000 and 100,000 white corpuscles in a cubic millimetre of blood which normally contains only from 5,000 to 6,000. The symptoms of this disease are very similar to those of anaemia, and the diagnosis is confirmed by microscopic examination of the blood. The leukaemias are accompanied by swelling of the glands but this also occurs in other diseases.
A small increase of the white corpuscles is found in such a great number of the more common diseases that an examination of the blood is often made as a routine measure. In many cases, for instance, of appendicitis, the white corpuscles increase to from 15,000 to 20,000 per cubic millimetre; in pneumonia they also increase sometimes to 40,000 per cubic millimetre. In other more common diseases such as tonsilitis or sore throat, erysipelas, in smallpox, and inflammatory diseases such as septicaemia, boils, bone diseases and pyaemia, a greater or less increase is always found. In other diseases absence of an increase often enables the right diagnosis to be made, since in typhoid fever (which might in the early stages be mistaken for appendicitis) there would be no increase in the early stage of the disease, but it would probably be marked in the latter stages. In whooping-cough a marked leucocytosis occurs, which may confirm a doubtful diagnosis. Research Leucocytosis
Whooping-cough (Pertussis) is an infectious disease which often occurs in epidemics; it is more common in childhood, and generally occurs only once in the same individual. Abortive attacks may occur and not be recognised. The characteristic symptom is the peculiar cough which gives the disease its descriptive name. The infectious agent is the Bacillus pertussis.
The disease is usually divided into four periods: (1) incubation; (2) the catarrhal stage; (3) the sparmodic, or paroxysmal, stage; (4) the stage of decline. The incubation may vary between 7 and 14 days. In the catarrhal stage the child may be feverish and has a persistent cough; the third stage is characterised by a convulsive paroxysmal cough, occurring especially at night and attended by long-continued hissing convulsive breathing with rattling in the air passages. This is succeeded by several short efforts to expel the breath, following each other in quick succession. The long convulsive breathing, attended by the whooping sound or crowing, is immediately repeated; these paroxysms continue until a small quantity of thick slimy ropy mucus is thrown up by expectoration or vomiting, when the breathing again becomes free. During these paroxysms the patient appears to be about to suffocate with congestion of the face, shedding of tears, sweating about the head and forehead, and such distress that he often lays hold of something for support. Blood sometimes starts from the nostrils and a child may involuntarily pass water or evacuate the bowels. In spring and autumn the disease most commonly prevails. It is not generally dangerous except in young children under five years of age. Research Whooping-Cough
Chloral a liquid first prepared by Justus Liebig by passing dry chlorine gas through absolute alcohol to saturation, and still prepared in a similar manner. When mixed with water it readily yields chloral hydrate), a white crystalline substance, which, in contact with alkalies, yields chloroform and formic acid. Chloral kills by paralysing the action of the heart, but is often employed in medicine. It is a hypnotic as well as an anaesthetic, and is frequently substituted for morphia. It has been successfully used in delirium tremens, St Vitus's dance, poisoning by strychnia, in tetanus, and in some cases of asthma and whooping-cough. It should be taken with great caution and under medical advice, as an extra dose may produce serious symptoms and even death. The treatment of poisoning by chloral is to keep the person warm by means of blankets, warm bottles; etc. Warm stimulating drinks should also be administered, such as hot coffee, hot tea, negus, etc. It has been shown that an animal kept warm by wrapping in cotton wool recovered from a dose of chloral that otherwise would have killed it. Research Chloral
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Abbreviations
Research Leucocytosis
