Management of acute laryngotracheobronchitis.

Abstract

IN 1908, Chevalier Jackson directed the attention of the physicians of America to a disease entity which has come to be known as acute laryngotracheobronchitis. As a pioneer in endoscopy, Jackson was afforded the opportunity of viewing through the bronchoscope the nonmembranous character of this disease as it affected the larynx, trachea and bronchi in a number of children who appeared clinically to have diphtheria. He described the pathology as differing from that of diphtheria in that the mucosa was more edematous and the secretion thick and tenacious, tending to form crusts and plugs and often leading to atelectasis and death. The disease in its severest form was observed most frequently in children under 3 years of age, whose air passages are actually, as well as relatively, smaller than those of older children. When a normally small airway was attacked by an inflammation characterized by swelling of the loose subglottic