A treatise on epidemic cholera, as observed in the Duane Street Cholera Hospital, New York, during its prevalence there in 1834 / By Floyd T. Ferris.

  • Ferris, Floyd T., 1793-1855.
Date:
1835
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A treatise on epidemic cholera, as observed in the Duane Street Cholera Hospital, New York, during its prevalence there in 1834 / By Floyd T. Ferris. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    A treatise on The pulse gradually becomes weak, feeble, and slow; sometimes, however, it is increased in frequency. The vomiting and purging continue increasing in violence ; the body generally, begins to lose its plumpness and rotundity, and an evident diminution is perceptible. The muscles are more distinct and better defined; the features of the face are contracted, and its lineaments are strongly marked; the eyes are sunken and hollow, and surrounded with a livid circle ; the lips begin to assume a bluish colour; the body becomes cold, more particularly the extremities, and is covered with a cold, clammy sweat; the circulation in all the extreme vessels now becomes feeble and tardy, and the patient complains of a difficulty of breathing, and of a sense of weight in the region of the epigastrium. In many cases the whole surface of the body is covered with a thin watery perspiration, which literally drenches the patient, his linen and bedding being completely satu- rated, so that the watery fluids of the blood appear to be discharged from the skin, almost as rapidly as from the stomach and bowels. This profuse perspiration may be considered as a most unfavourable symptom. The integu- ments are shrivelled and corrugated, and appear as if they had been soaked for a long time in warm water; the fin- gers and toes are diminished at least one-third their usual volume, and are much pointed ; the pulse is rapidly sink- ing,—it is contracted, thready, small to excess, scarcely perceptible, and soon becomes extinct. The tongue is white, broad, flaccid, and cold. This last symptom is peculiar to Cholera, and is never found to accompany any other.