Observations on the pestilential cholera (asphyxia pestilenta) as it appeared at Sunderland in the months of November and December, 1831; and on the measures taken for its prevention and cure / by William Ainsworth.

  • Ainsworth, William, 1807-1896.
Date:
1832
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Observations on the pestilential cholera (asphyxia pestilenta) as it appeared at Sunderland in the months of November and December, 1831; and on the measures taken for its prevention and cure / by William Ainsworth. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    answer, we know nothing of any of the animal functions, in their healthy or morbid action, but by their effects. These effects are the facts of physiology, or the symptoms of disease; and if in fever or in catarrhal affections of the gastro-enteric mucous membrane, we have a peculiar train of symptoms present which are not always present in Asphyxia pestilenta, or they follow a particular succession, which is reversed in the pestilential disease; then we must search for a cause that will serve to explain the anomalous symptoms, and make us acquainted with the true character of the disease. The insidious nature of the Asphyxia is evidenced in two peculiar symptoms,—the existence of a previous diarrhoea, and the sudden evacuation of a fluid which we know to contain the constituents of the healthy blood. With regard to diarrhoea, Dr. Becker has very ably pointed out three different sources of this phenomenon: 1st, The attention paid, during the existence of the pestilence in a town, to all derangements of the bowels, which thus bring them under the notice of the medical men; 2d, Derangements of the digestive organs^ actually brought on by the sudden change