Report on cholera in the Black Sea Fleet : can the attack of cholera be sudden? / Letter from D. Maclouglin (sic).

  • Macloughlin, David, 1786-1870
Date:
1855
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report on cholera in the Black Sea Fleet : can the attack of cholera be sudden? / Letter from D. Maclouglin (sic). Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service. The original may be consulted at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service.

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    e cbolera without a premonitory diarrhoea has been discovered; and, from researches at the bedside before death, and from researches by autopsy after death, it has been shown that it is as impossible for an individual to be suddenly seized with cholera, and to be deprived of life by the disease, without a pre- monitory diarrhooa, as it is impossible for an individual to die of hffimorrhage without having a vein or an artery open. And, consequently, cholera is the result of diarrhoea, and, therefore, is not an idiopathic disease; and, consequently, the same cause which causes diarrhoea will cause cholera. But does diarrhoea depend on an endemic cause only? Wherever epidemic cholera has prevailed, epidemic diarrhoea has also prevailed; and we have the proof here before us in the Eeport, that, at the same time that epidemic dian'hoea pre- vailed in London, in France, in the Baltic, in America, etc., it also prevailed in the fleet in the Black Sea, Therefore, it is impossible to admit that a disease which raged at one and the same time over thousands of miles can have an endemic cause only. Besides, there is another circumstance which has heretofore escaped attention, and which marks that an epidemic abnormal state of the digestive functions precedes an outbreak of epi- demic diai-rhoea. At p. 13 of the Result of an Inquiry into the Invariable Existence of a Premonitory Diarrhaia in Cliolera, it is stated that, before epidemic diarrhoea breaks out, there is a change which takes place in the health of every individual of the commtmity. Their stomachs and bowels are more easily deranged by the slightest irregularity in diet, and diarrhoea thereby induced. Evei7 one has borborygmi—and especially when in bed—^between one and five in the morning. Those who usually requu-e laxatives, now do not require them ; and half, one-third, or one-fourth the usual dose will have the same
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