Yellow fever and its homoeopathic treatment / by Wm. H. Holcombe.

  • Holcombe, William H. (William Henry), 1825-1893.
Date:
1856
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Yellow fever and its homoeopathic treatment / by Wm. H. Holcombe. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    effusion of yellow serum into the cellular tissue, conjunctiva &c, in Murat, when he was king of Naples. Mental emo- tions have caused changes in the mother's milk, sufficient to poison the child. Mayo states that when the pulmonary in- nervation is cut off by section of the eighth pair, the blood is partially deprived of its fibrin, and the fibrin and hsematosin are found separated in the pulmonary veins. The same expe- riment made by Dupuy upon a horse, led to a dissolved state of the blood, and this devitalized blood, injected into the veins of another horse, caused gangrene. Dr. Bell has seen sun- stroke produce rapid deterioration of the blood, and breaking down of all the solids of the body, so that the smell of putre- faction existed even before death. Mr. Dickinson, good au- thority in tropical fevers, states that he has seen pure black vomit induced by sun-stroke and by injuries of the brain. The continued functional derangement of the whole blood- making apparatus is a sufficient cause of the deterioration of the blood. This vitiated state is, no doubt, vastly increased by the retention, in the circulation, of the carbon and nitrogen which should have been eliminated, the former by the liver, the latter by the kidneys. The hemorrhagic transudation of the second stage depends upon two causes acting conjointly; the want of plasticity and arterialization of the blood, and the relaxed state of the capil- laries, induced by their abnormal innervation. That the state of the nerve-centres alone may so modify the capillaries under their control as to permit or induce haemorrhage, is evident from the hsematemesis which occurs when the state of the uterine nerve-centres is reflected upon those of the stomach. Black vomit, the most dreaded of these exudations, is blood chemically modified by the gastric secretions. The vomiting preceding its appearance, is almost always intensely acid. The blood is poured out by a kind of exosmosis; for the mem- branes are generally perfectly free from any trace of rupture. The albuminous part of the effused liquid is coagulated into that finely-granulated state compared to coffee-grounds, while the coloring matter, already dark by excess of carbonaceous matters, is rendered pitch-black by the sulphuretted hydrogen and other chemical agents always present in the intestinal tube.