The licensed physicians of Rhode Island in the year 1895.

A brief demographic profile of the 466 physicians applying for licensure in Rhode Island in the year 1895, is presented here. The typical Rhode Island physician of a century ago was a New England-born 39-year-old white male general practitioner who had little undergraduate education, received his medical diploma from an allopathic medical school within 180 miles of his place of birth, typically a small town, had little or no supervised hospital training, professed to no specialty and established his office, often sharing space with his practitioner-father, within the same community in which he was born.

Status asthmaticus associated with hyperthyroidism.

The syndrome of asthma and hyperthyroidism is uncommon and has been reported to occur approximately once every three hundred admissions for asthma. The frequency may be higher with an increased awareness; however, when this syndrome is present, it is usually associated with a very severe form of asthma necessitating frequent emergency treatment and hospitalization. Although severe asthma alone or together with side effects of drugs used in its treatment may mimic many symptoms associated with hyperthyroidism, an awareness of this syndrome will enable one to easily establish the diagnosis. In these cases, the hyperthyroidism may be iodide induced especially in those patients with diffuse or nodule thyroid goiter. Since this form of hyperthyroidism may be self-limiting, initial treatment should include a trial of propylthiouracil or methimazole up to six months. Medical therapy of the hyperthyroid results in dramatic improvement of the asthma.

Chronic persistent cough: an uncommon presenting complaint of thyroiditis.

We report two patients with non-conventional thyroiditis whose chief complaint was chronic persistent cough. Cough was attributed to thyroiditis only after extensive diagnostic evaluations failed to uncover another cause and only after cough and thyroiditis disappeared simultaneously with suppressive therapy for the latter. Although thyroiditis is a rare cause of persistently troublesome cough, the diagnosis can be made by systematic evaluation of the sites of receptors and afferent nerves subserving the cough reflex.