A course of lectures on medicine to nurses / by Herbert E. Cuff.

Cuff, Herbert E. (Herbert Edmund), 1864-1921

Date:: 1907

Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: A course of lectures on medicine to nurses / by Herbert E. Cuff. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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and commenced to grow, how do they pro- duce the symptoms of that disease ? This they do by forming a substance called the toxinc* which entering the circulation poisons the system and so gives rise to symptoms. It is thistoxine which does all the harm, and may ultimately cause the death of the patient. A certain period of time always elapses between the arrival of the germs in the tissues and the commence- ment of the illness. This period is called the time of incubation. It varies considerably in length in different diseases. During it the germs are busy multiplying and producing their poison, until at last sufficient of the latter is present in the system to give rise to symptoms, whereupon the illness commences. The rash, fever, wasting, &c., all result from the injurious effect which the toxine has upon the system. A parallel to this may be found in the case of a man who has gradually increasing doses of arsenic, or any other poison, administered to him with his daily food. A t first no symptoms would follow; then, as more and more of the poison accumulated in his system, he would begin to feel unwell, and finally, unmistakable evidence of the particular poison which was being used would show itself. We must now consider the means by which the germs are checked in their growth and finally killed; so that the system is relieved of their presence and the illness conies to an end. This is supposed to happen in the following way : While the germs are growing and producing the * Toxinc Is a Greek word meaning “ poison.”