Report on the effects of acrid poisons / by Thomas Hodgkin.

Date:
1836
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report on the effects of acrid poisons / by Thomas Hodgkin. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    2\2 and its lining membrane may be nearly or quite white; or, on the other hand, they may lie turgid by cadaveric congestion, and the lining membrane may be more intensely injected than in many cases of poisoning. Such differences though great are not more remarkable than those which are seen after death in the common integuments. It is however of the utmost importance that they should be well understood, since a mistake respecting them might seriously affect the reputation, if not the life, of a fellow-creature. The medical profession is greatly indebted to Dr. Yellowly, who long since called the attention of his brethren to this subject. The colour of the mucous membrane of the stomach is also very liable to be modified by its contents, which act on the blood in its vessels by transudation after death. This and some other circumstances to be hereafter mentioned have probably been the means of tuniing aside from the truth many able pathologists who have written on gastro-intestinal irritation, and more especially on chronic inflammation of the mucous membrane of the stomach. The researches of Dr. Stevens re- specting the influence of different agents on the colour of the blood are well deserving attention in connexion with this sub- ject, and appear to me to have thrown new light upon it. The colour of the stomach as well as many other parts may be greatly altered by exposure to the air after removal from the body. The form and texture of the mucous coat of the stomach, which are of equal importance whether we regard the effects of disease or of poisons, appear to be involved in no less difficulty than the subject of the colour. As a preliminary step to the right understanding of these alterations of texture we ought to be acquainted with those dif- ferences which depend in some degree on individual peculiarity, since the internal as well as the external teguments may admit of varieties of this kind. Still greater and more important dif- ferences are doubtless to be referred to the kind of diet which has been habitually employed; here however an almost insur- mountable difficulty presents itself, since the diet employed in this and in most other civilized countries is of so various, and at the same time of so mixed a character as to render it almost impossible to connect cause and effect with any degree of cer- tainty. If the subject were not neglected, as appears to have been altogether the case, some clue might possibly be found in the observation and collection of extreme cases which from time to time present themselves, and some assistance might be derived in the way of analogy from experiments performed on inferior animals fed expressly for this purpose. Some of the differences of form and texture which come under