The antidotal treatment of the epidemic cholera / by John Parkin.

  • Parkin, John, 1801-1886.
Date:
[1866?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The antidotal treatment of the epidemic cholera / by John Parkin. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    17/290 (page 11)
    without^ and not within, the body. Although it is immaterial, in a practical point of view, in what way the deleterious matter enters the system, still, when we witness the numerous changes which take place in the atmosphere, during the prevalence of the malady ; that the epidemic commences in one place on the set- ting in of particular winds, and subsides in another after heavy showers of rain, or, the reverse; it is not illogical to infer, that the poison is contained in the air we breathe. What the source is, whence this destructive agent is derived, it would be superfluous to attempt to show in this place—particularly as I can refer those inte- rested in the inquiry to a work expressly devoted to the subject.* It is sufficient for the present to con- clude, that the Epidemic, Malignant, or Blue Cholera is produced by a specific cause; and this cause, the introduction into the system of an extraneous, delete- rious, and poisonous substance. Taking it for granted, then, that to this single cause we must ascribe the production of the disease under consideration, it only remains to ascertain how the poison acts, when thus introduced into the human body. This has been most ably accomplished by Mr. Bell, who has clearly shown, that the Epidemic Cholera is the effect of a derangement or suspension of those functions over which the sympathetic, or ganglionic, system of nerves presides.-]- As the circu- * On the Remote Cause of Epidemic Diseases, t On the Cholera Asphyxia.