Essay on the origin, progress and treatment of cholera : with remarks on berriberri and diet as connected with endemics and epidemics / by James Bankier.

  • Bankier James.
Date:
1835
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Essay on the origin, progress and treatment of cholera : with remarks on berriberri and diet as connected with endemics and epidemics / by James Bankier. 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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    something rei^arfling the evolution of heat in the human body. We know that the temperature of the blood un- der all circumstances is about 98°; this is generally the case under whatever alteration of temperature the body may be exposed. If, however, a greater proportion of heat is present than the man can well withstand, it must either accumulate in the system, or be got rid of in some other manner. The M ay in which this is sometimes, or generally accomphshed is by the perspiration, which we may, for the sake of illustration, consider as something analogous to the process of evaporation^from the boiling water. This being allowed, the solution of the question becomes easy. But if the heat, in either instance, be shut in, then there must be either a bursting of the ves- sel, or disease engendered in the S3-stem. Perspiration then is to be looked on as the cooling process by which the body gets rid of its redundant heat, and by which it is maintained at a pretty uniform standard ; this too in almost any clime of moderate degrees of temperature, provided the person has done nothing to heat himself, by giving an increased impetus to his nervous system, and thereby adding activity to the circulation. We may thus easily perceive the manner in which an accumula- tion of heat in the body engenders disease, in those who have not the regulating medium in a proper state, and it particularly manifests itself on those parts which from their bulk are most susceptible of its actions, such as the liver, brain or bowels, &c. this is pre-eminently the case in hot climates. It is unnecessary here to say what the effects, or ultimate terminations of these primary dis- orders may lead to. Thus, then, have I accounted for the general laws which are at present allowed to be tenable; as yet little, or nothing, has been said in respect of the nervous play