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.

    26/214 page 14
    thickened state of the blood, which is the cause of the algide symptoms ; and the amount of malignancy of the case must depend chiefly on the extent to which the func- tion of absorption is impaired. If absorption were altogether arrested in every case of cholera from the beginning, the amount of discharge from the alimentary canal would not equal that of a fatal haemor- rhage, for the thickened blood which remains is certainly not able to maintain life so well as the same quantity of healthy blood. Indeed, it is easy to calculate the amount of fluid separated from the blood, by means of the ana- lyses previously quoted, and others which have been made of the cholera stools. In some analyses of these evacua- tions made by Dr. Parkes,* the average composition in 1,000 parts was found to be 982.4 water and 17.6 solids; consequently, the problem is merely to And how much of such a fluid requires to be subtracted from blood consist- ing of water 785 and solids 215, in 1000 parts, in order to reduce it to blood consisting of water 733 and solids 267. The answer to this problem is that 208.5 parts would require to be subtracted from 1000 parts of blood. M. Valentin has estimated the average amount of blood in the human adult at thirty pounds; and, therefore, the whole quantity of fluid that requires to be effused into the stomach and bowels, in order to reduce the blood of a healthy adult individual to the condition in which it is met with in the collapse of cholera is, on the average, 100 ounces, or flve imperial pints. This calculation may be useful as indicating the amount of fluid which ought not to be exceeded in the injection of the blood vessels. Diseases which are communicated from person to person are caused by some material which passes from the sick to
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