Observations on spasmodic cholera : its origin, nature, and treatment : with remarks on epidemic diseases generally / by Henry M'Cormac.

Date:
1832
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Observations on spasmodic cholera : its origin, nature, and treatment : with remarks on epidemic diseases generally / by Henry M'Cormac. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    ' *1 SPASMODIC CHOLERA. 15 is not always thus rapid ; a secondary fever, of a severe stamp, will sometimes set in. This fever not unfrequently proves fatal to those who have escaped the first attack. But the disease will now be more fully elucidated by an analysis of its nature and constitution. I must premise, by stating that Cholera is essentially a disease of function, any organic change that may ensue, is the result—the consequence, but not the cause of the disease. The poisonous agency which produces Cholera, acts by des- troying or diminishing the action of one of the three grand divisions of that nervous system, by whose powers the human frame is maintained in life and vigour. These three are, the respiratory, the cerebral, and the sympathetic ; and it is by the lesion or injury of the last, that we suppose Cholera Morbus to be produced. The breathing continues, as the nerves upon which this function depends remain intact; the senses and the voluntary muscular powers continue whole, as the brain and its dependencies are unaffected ; but as the motion of the heart, and the integrity of the secretions, depend upon the sympathetic nerve, its ganglions and plexusses, so the loss of power in the latter, also diminishes, or entirely interrupts these functions. Hence the motion of the heart, and conse- quently ihe circulation of the blood, and the production of animal heat, are impaired; the renal, hepatic, and other secre- tions cease; and as the integrity of the whole nervous system depends upon that of its parts, so the lesion of the latter causes that of the former, until, if it continues long enough, death itself must ensue, from the want of harmony in the system. Hence it will appear, why the renewal of the secretions is justly considered a favourable sign. As the mouths of the excreting vessels, or in other words, the extremi- ties of the arteries terminating upon the inner surface of the intestines, lose their tone, immense quantities of fluid are thrown out, and the blood is, as it were, drained of its fluid part, or serum. So when we take away blood in Cholera, it is thick and tenacious, as well as dark coloured, there being no arterialization, or conversion of the dark venous, into red arterial blood in the lungs.—Such, in brief terms, is the nature of this disease, which has committed such extensive ravages, and consigned so many millions of our race to the dust—ravages which no pen could chronicle, heart sympathize with, nor intellect fully conceive. T have said before, that we did not know the exact nature and operation of the poison which produces Cholera. That it was not communicated by contagion in the first instance, is quite self-evident, and equally true of all contagious dis- eases; but is it not most wonderful how it is, that the hu- man frame possesses the power of generating a continuation of that poison, capable of producing (lie same effects: this is among the hidden mysteries of our nature, which human