Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1917 edition. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER 14. HOW A PHANTOM TUMOR WAS DISSIPATED. AST June the New Hampshire Dental Society held a convention at Weirs, on --Lake Winnepesaukee. One of the residents of the summer colony was brought before the convention on the evening of June 23d. Her serious condition baffled the local physicians. It was hoped that among the two hundred scientific men, gathered there from all parts of the East, some might be found who could help her. She was a woman about thirty-five years old, well nourished and apparently healthy, apart from a large swelling in the front of the neck. Manifestly the thyroid and other glands had become enlarged through some unknown inflammatory cause. She was suffering great pain. The slightest touch caused agony. Swallowing was impossible. Not even a drop of water had passed down her throat since the preceding Friday night. This was Wednesday night. A healthy human being can exist from seven to ten days without water. This woman had been without water for five days, suffering mental and physical torture. Her physician insisted, as the only means of saving her life, that an operation be performed at once. The half dozen or more physicians who had been called in consultation concurred in this. There was nothing left but to perform an intubation -- the insertion of a tube in the gullet, through which water and food might be passed, pending some possible measure of relief. The heart was racing along at one hundred and fifty beats a minute, and there were all the peculiar symptoms usually associated with thyroid disturbances. Inasmuch as the whole trouble had developed in a week, it was most unlikely that the condition was goitrous. As it was probable that the trouble was associated with the thyroid, a physician present...