On scurvy : as it appeared in the allied armies during the late war with Russia / by S.D. Bird.

  • Bird, Samuel Dougan, 1832-1904.
Date:
1858
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On scurvy : as it appeared in the allied armies during the late war with Russia / by S.D. Bird. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    beinc but little weakened. How common was it on the other hand to see men unable to sit upright without fainting, bloodless from htemorrhage and diarrhoea, unable to feed themselves from sheer prostration of muscular power, yet with hardly a visible sign by which a person unaccustomed to such cases could distinguish them as scurvy, except the peculiar complexion, and just enough affection of the skin and gums to swear by. The fatal examples of exedent ulcer of the cheek are but exceptions that prove the rule, everyone has seen cases in which the severity of the external symptoms of a disease, though in themselves the natural exit of the morbid poison, has been the immediate cause of death, apart from its influence on the organisation generally. Some cases of small pox and scarlatina anginosa are examples of this. Of course I do not mean to institute a strict analogy between scurvy and such diseases, but merely to draw a parallel illustrative of the manner in which one of the great laws of Nature holds good in the disease which we are considering, as in all others. There is a striking and instructive contrast between the nature and effects of scurvy and those of inflammation. Both are morbid states of the blood differing widely in their origin and still more so in their course and effects on the tissues and the system generally. But there is a parallelism of contrast. between them (if I may use such an expression) which is very remarkable. If inflammation be considered as an exalted, and at the same time, perverted condition of the attraction and mutual reaction which exist always between the blood in the capillaries, and the tissues that blood is to nourish, the symptoms of scurvy, on the other hand, may be defined as evidences of a depressed state of the same vital action. In the former, the blood in the affected part super-
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