Manual of pathological anatomy / by C.Handfield Jones and Edward H. Sieveking edited by Joseph Frank Payne.

Date:
1875
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Manual of pathological anatomy / by C.Handfield Jones and Edward H. Sieveking edited by Joseph Frank Payne. 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.

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    is no doubt that the phenomena in this affection are owing to the ] presence of some abnormal matter circulating with the blood. In that state of system which Dr. Prout has distinguished by i the name of the oxalic acid diathesis, it has been thought that oxalic : acid, or some of its salts, must be present in the blood, and be the i exciting cause of the various symptoms. It has, however, never ; yet been detected in the blood, though it has been in urine and ! several other of the fluids of the body. It is, according to recent ’ views, chemically in close relation to urea, and its occurrence is i therefore not surprising. Morbid Poisons.—The above-mentioned substances, abnormally ] present in the blood, and producing disease, are tolerably well de- ; fined, but there are many others of whose nature we are ignorant, i and which quite escape our means of observation. The principal i of them are infectious principles of the so-called Exanthematous i diseases, including continued fevers; syphilis belongs to the same i category, and various cutaneous disorders, especially the squamous i and vesicular. Variola, and its modification vaccinia, are the only : instances in which we can at all pretend actually to exhibit the materies morbi, and to transfer it from one system to another; < even in these cases the visible fluid is but the vehicle of the poison, ifor that is aeriform, and capable of being received through the channel of the lungs. The venom of deadly snakes, perhaps, may i be an instance in which the matter inducing the morbid alterations in the blood of the bitten person is manifest and palpable ; but even : here we have no knowledge what the substance is which produces ithe septic effects. In the case, however, of deleterious gases, and of most poisons, the toxic agent is clearly known, and we can ! form some idea of its mode of operation. It would be quite beyond our province to attempt any detail of the various poisons and the effects they produce; we can only observe that they are all refer- able with tolerable accuracy to three heads, or to two of these combined, viz., (1) poisons which act as irritants, producing more or less irritation and inflammation of various organs; (2) poisons which act as sedatives, causing paralysis, more or less immediate and complete, of the nervous system; (3) septic poisons, which • seem to annihilate the vital power, and induce rapid putrefaction of all the organic fluids and solids. With regard to the action of poisons there are two fundamental ideas which it seems desirable briefly to refer to. One is, that when a minute portion of virus is introduced into the system, it appears to multiply itself immensely, as if it possessed the power of transforming healthy matter into its own noxious nature. Such a multiplication must take place when an unprotected person is i inoculated with the matter of variola, the minute quantity of virus : introduced reproduces similar properties in the contents of the numberless pustules which are formed all over the surface. The 1 same is doubtless the case with all infectious diseases, and with syphilis. The conception now mentioned applies more particularly