On the mode of communication of cholera / by John Snow.

  • John Snow
Date:
1855
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the mode of communication of cholera / by John Snow. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    24/214 (page 12)
    ingredients^ or to the whole quantity existing in the healthy body, the amount is diminished. Dr. Garrod is of opinion that a chemical analysis will determine whether or not a specimen of blood has been derived from a cholera patient. The stools and vomited matters in cholera consist of water, containing a small quantity of the salts of the blood, and a very little albuminous substance. The change in the blood is precisely that which the loss by the alimentary canal ought to produce ; and, indeed, it is physically impossible that the alteration in the blood can be caused in any other way. The sweating which takes place in an advanced stage of the disease may increase the density of the blood to a trifling extent; but it does not come on till the blood is already altered, and it is only a consequence of the diminished force of the circulation, like the sweating met with in collapse from hsemorrhage or severe injuries, and in faintness from venesection. The loss of water from the blood causes it to assume the thick tarry appearance, so well known to all who have opened a vein in cholera. The diminished volume of the blood causes many of the symptoms of a true hsemorrhage, as debility, faintness, and coldness; while these effects are much increased by its thick and tenacious condition, which impedes its passage through the pulmonary capillaries, thereby reducing the contents of the arteries throughout the system to the smallest possible amount, as indicated by the small thready pulse. The interruption to the pulmonary circulation occasioned by the want of fluidity of the blood, is the cause of the distressing feeling of want of breath. Proofs of the obstructed circulation through the lungs generally remain after death, in the distended state of the pulmonary arteries and right cavities of the heart. The deficient supply of blood to the various organs, and its unfitness to pass through the capillaries.