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Diphtheria in the Thumbs.

Among the various freaks of that terrible disease, diphtheria, which has made such ravages among the children in this city within the past few months, is one lately developed in the case of a little daughter of Mr. James Scull, of West Side avenue. The child is about five years of age, and was taken sick with diphtheria about five weeks ago. A day or two previous to the attack she had broken the skin on the back of both her thumbs. Dr. W. Pyle, the attending physician, found the child had all the symptoms of diphtheria, with the exception of the formation of a membrane in the throat. But this membrane was formed on the back of each thumb, over the places where the skin had been abraded. The doctor, becoming interested in this strange freak of the disease, removed the diseased membranes from the thumbs, when others immediately succeeded in the same places. He then examined the membrane as it appeared on the child's thumbs, under the microscope, and found it to be in every particular like that which, in this disease, usually forms in the throat or in some of the air-passages. He took a membrane from the throat of another little daughter of Mr. Scull, who was then sick and has since died with diphtheria, and, comparing it with that taken from her sister's thumb, found them precisely alike. The little girl who had been the subject of this singular development, as the disease advanced from one stage to another, still continued to show symptoms of diphtheria, having paralysis of the soft palate and lower extremities, being unable to either move or speak for several days. She at length began to grow convalescent, however, and is now nearly recovered, being again able to walk about and talk the same as before her sickness, while the sores on the back of her thumbs are entirely healed up. Dr. Pyle is of the opinion that the course taken by the disease in this case is a strong argument in favor of the opinion which many medical men hold that diphtheria is not wholly, if it is indeed chiefly, a disease of the throat and organs of respiration.—Jersey City (N. J.) Journal.