Cholera : an analysis of its epidemic, endemic, and contagious character; with original and peculiar views of its mode of propagation and the means of counteracting it. Showing also by analogy that the means of preserving organized bodies from decay point to the only true curative principles in the treatment of fevers generally, and more especially cholera / by Henry Stephens.

  • Stephens Henry surgeon.
Date:
1849
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Cholera : an analysis of its epidemic, endemic, and contagious character; with original and peculiar views of its mode of propagation and the means of counteracting it. Showing also by analogy that the means of preserving organized bodies from decay point to the only true curative principles in the treatment of fevers generally, and more especially cholera / by Henry Stephens. 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.

    16/52 (page 12)
    instance, where contact with the infected person or infected clothes is sufficient. That poisons are such only when applied in the particular way and to the particular part susceptible to its influence, is proved by numerous instances. Scarlet fever first affects the throat, the earliest symptoms being an ulcerated throat. The poison of serpents, so deadly fatal in its effects upon the blood, by direct contact, may be taken into the stomach, with impunity. Not only are poisons peculiar to parts of the body, but poisons are peculiar to particular animals only, as witness the glanders so fatal among horses; but oxen and cows and sheep may be mingled with infected horses with impunity ; but the ass is equally as susceptible as the horse. Numerous other instances might be named of these peculiar effects were it necessary. Should it be admitted, which I think cannot be denied, that poisons or infections first affect a part, and then the body secondarily, it will be asked, HOW, UPON THIS SUPPOSITION, IS THE POISON OF CHOLERA COMMUNICATED TO THE HUMAN BODY ? I answer, through the medium of the intestinal canal. In the attacks of cholera there is a preceding or primary effect, first produced upon the stomach and bowels. A large proportion of persons are, during the prevalence of cholera, affected with symptoms of indiges- tion, often in an extraordinary degree, with a frequent disposition to looseness of the bowels. These are the