A succinct treatise on medical reform for Ireland : embracing improvements in etiology or in the knowledge of the relative agency, of the concurring causes of its epidemic and pestilential diseases, with a view to preventive measures, and improvements in pathology, or the application of the disjecta membra of the rival systems of fluidism and solidism, to form one more perfect than either, with a view to remedial measures / by William Stoker.

  • Stoker, Gulielmus, 1773-1848.
Date:
1836
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A succinct treatise on medical reform for Ireland : embracing improvements in etiology or in the knowledge of the relative agency, of the concurring causes of its epidemic and pestilential diseases, with a view to preventive measures, and improvements in pathology, or the application of the disjecta membra of the rival systems of fluidism and solidism, to form one more perfect than either, with a view to remedial measures / by William Stoker. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    and strong, and skin warm. Under the employment of suitable reme¬ dies particularly venesection and aperients, and a mixture wit ammonia he gradually improved ; hut on the 12th, at 9 a.m. he was suddenly attacked with mucus purging, and at 11 a. m. with pain and spasm through his whole body, with constant writhing of his limbs, skin being cold, shrunk and livid, hands and lower extremities remarkably so, and partially occupied with extensive echymoses. The eyes shortly before prominent, were then hollow, and his coun¬ tenance pale, collapsed, and anxious ; no pulse could be felt at the wrists even after warm drinks and warmth had been employed. These symptoms I have been more particular in stating, as this was one of those cases I wished to be examined before and after death, and compared with those just then reported from England and the Continent ; but my colleagues as well as the Boards of H and the Managing Committee were opposed to it. My proposition was therefore rejected and the investigation, with a view to public safety has been since denied. Although very active treatment was adopted in Dargan’s case (as ordered in full consultation), death took place seven hours from the period of the relapse About la an hour after death, Dr. William Stokes inspected the body along with me, and the remarkable circumstances then to be observed were constriction of the abdominal muscles, livid hue of the skin and echymoses on the elbows and lower extremities. From such appearances, as well as the report of the nurse, and the sudden death Dr. Stokes expressed his opinion, and afterwards promptly repeate< it in a letter to me, that the case resembled, and he would pro¬ nounce it malignant cholera, if he had not on other occasions witnessed as great prostration of strength and as sudden dissolu¬ tion follow perforation of the intestines. He also regretted with me that the regulations adopted by the managing committee of the hospital opposed my urgent request of post mortem examination. And to decide the nature of this interesting and important case— I felt to be of vital importance to the public at that time. The following table of admissions and deaths, constructed from the medical and annual reports of the managing committee of the Cork-street Fever hospital, being necessary to bring this sketch to the termination of 1834, and in willing compliance with a renuest of the able chairman of the Parliamentary Committee of EuXryou Medical Education, I add it. Besides, it afford, valua- ble evidence on the vitally important and still unsettled question, whether the epidemic constitution which has so repeatedly produced such dreadful effects in Great Britain and Ireland, since 183-, was then the result of a newly imported contagion sui generis, and productive of disease, requiring distinct and separate modes of prevention and cure ? or was itjjiat of atmospherical distemperature aggravating disease to which it had previously approximated.