A positive or correct diagnosis of these two conditions should be made at the earliest possible moment, lest a serious, not to say a fatal, mistake be made, and every means to surmount the difficulties which lie in our way should be conscientiously employed and thoroughly exhausted. That the clinical picture may lead us to error is sufficiently proven when we see such authorities as the elder Fournier, the world's most prominent syphilographer, an acknowledged authority of pre-eminence, err in his diagnosis by relying too implicitly on, as he supposed, a well-established clinical picture.
Bacteriology has made possible the study and classification of the pseudomembranous angina?; has demonstrated their different varieties, and placed at our command an almost, if not quite, certain means of establishing a diagnosis. The physician meets with many conditions which present an almost identical picture, both macroscopically and microscopically, but which are due to vastly