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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    be greatly benefitted by perspiration, but tliis may add much to his annoyance or disquiet. Why does this cool- ing process not occur in the case of a patient who has been sweating in bed for hours together, if the perspira- tion be a cooling pi'ocess, at the moment of its formation' we ought to have hectic patients in a cold climate al- most frozen to death in winter, and the blood robbed of much of its heat. Some may think that we should be more cool and comfortable in a hot climate than we usu' ally are, or even in bed, the parts that are covered with perspiration should feel the coolest, especially when not exposed to any current of air, but we all know that such is not the case ; the reason of this some may alledge to be very obvious, in saying, that it is only superabun- dant hsat vv^hich this process carries from the system, and that it is constantly engendered under such circum- stances. Such a notion maybe well enough adapted for those who think that such properties exist in the perspir- ed matter as generated in the living body, and this too in the warm bath above all other places. To me it appears that such a process as the absorbing or reducin g the temperature at the moment of its formation cannot take place, or even be admitted on chemical principles, or any other known laws, to the extent required to account for it. To what then are we to look for the solving of the phenomenon. The nervous system is that alone through which it can be satisfactorily accounted for; since by accommodating itself to existing circumstances, by some laws of its own, it produces a uniformity of action as regards temperature, either in a hot or cold climate ; to this power therefore are we to. ascribe the phenomena which take place in the animal machine for withstanding the ennui, and oppression of the one, or the over bracing effects of the other, as well as all the cold chills and other