Cholera morbus ... / Mr. Archer ... made the following report: the Committee on Foreign Affairs, to whom has been referred a memorial of the Board of Health of the city of New York, on the subject of the disease known as Indian or Asiatic cholera.

  • United States House Committee on Foreign Affairs
Date:
[1832]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Cholera morbus ... / Mr. Archer ... made the following report: the Committee on Foreign Affairs, to whom has been referred a memorial of the Board of Health of the city of New York, on the subject of the disease known as Indian or Asiatic cholera. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    course has been had to medical aid, or when the remedies had been imper¬ fectly administered. * Ordinary course of the Asiatic Cholera. We may admit of three stages in this plague. The first is that of its in¬ ferior degree, of its imperfect development, or only of the precursors. The second embraces its ordinary development. And the third comprehends the cases, in which the most alarming symptoms of the former stage acquire the greatest degree of intensityT. The first period is, unfortunately, too often neglected, at the great perii of the patient, because the symptoms are not then sufficiently alarming to give uneasiness; they are not even considered as belonging to cholera, but as the consequence of a simple gastric affection. The symptoms belonging to this first stage, are a sensation of uneasiness, either with, or without pain in the pit of the stomach, the want or loss of appetite, a great heaviness in the lower part of the abdomen, with a dispo¬ sition to diarrhea or a diarrhea partly developed, and which may precede the attack for sometime; afterwards some nausea, and even sometimes slight vomiting, and weakness in the limbs, head-ache, alternate shivering, and slight heat. These symptoms are not always united; sometimes one, and sometimes the other, predominates. During the epidemic, they are found more or less in every body; they last several days, disappear and return, and often have no other effect. They must then be regarded as an imper¬ fect development of the disease. The second stage is that in which the malady presents itself in its most striking characteristics. Here, too, the symptoms are not always the same in all individuals; hut the following are generally observed: frequent and weakening evacuations, both by vomiting and purging of aqueous liquids, greyish, like rice water, commonly untinged with bile, inodorous, and con¬ nected with some particles of mucus. At the same time, respiration be¬ comes more and more difficult; and this state is followed by excruciating pain, stifling and constriction in the region of the heart, interrupted by sighs. In the lower part of the abdomen, the patient experiences, alter*, nately, pains accompanied with heat; the disposition to vomit and purge augments, whilst the urine ceases entirely. Thirst becomes unquenchable, and, with it, a strongly marked desire of taking cold drink, and chiefly water, to calm the burning sensation in the pit of the stomach. Restless¬ ness augments to such a degree, that the patient hardly remains more than a single moment in the same position. The tongue becomes flabby, large, bluish, and even blue; afterwards it grows cold, as well as the breath. The extremities likewise soon grow cold, bluish, then blue, and are wrinkled as if they had been for a long time in warm water. The patient experiences at first pains and heart burnings, to which succeed very severe cramps, chiefly in the calf of the legs, in the joints of the toes and fingers: they are afterwards felt m the thighs; in the abdomen, and in the inferior part cf the stomach. The pulse lowers, and becomes almost imperceptible; the eyes are blood-shot, dim, hollow, and surrounded by a dark circle. The face, which is also blue, contracts, and expresses both the increase of weakness and of the collapse, as well as the greatest sadness, and the anguish of an imminent death. The blood drawn from the veins is black, and so thick, that it runs with great difficulty, and is cold to the touch. The third stage is that of a new degree of intensity in all qr in a part of
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