Essays on pathology and therapeutics: being the substance of the course of lectures (Volume 1).

  • Dickson, Samuel Henry, 1798-1872.
Date:
1845
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Essays on pathology and therapeutics: being the substance of the course of lectures (Volume 1). 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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    colored blotches covers the skin. In the more severe cases, these symptoms are attended with a low typhous type of fever, with wakefulness, tremors, delirium, and great prostration of strength. In all maritime countries, but more especially on the southern shores of our continent and in the West India islands, it is well known that fish, which generally take a high place among the luxuries of the table, are at particular seasons or under particu- lar circumstances unfit to be eaten, and indeed, absolutely poi- sonous. Some of the customs of our fish-markets having all the force of law, are founded upon this known fact; and even in our western rivers the large cat-fish and the buffalo-fish, are thought in the summer months rather dangerous food. A simi- lar opinion prevails all along our coast as to the shell fish, which are so abundant, and at other times so eagerly sought for. None dispute the correctness of the assumption, but there are different suggestions offered, to account for the morbid condition alluded to. It is supposed by some that at these periods the fish in ques- tion, undergo some spontaneous change, some periodical dete- rioration of health, which renders them unfit for food; others again, imagine that they procure at such times some species of nourishment which taints their juices; and others still, refer it to temperature merely, alleging that the substance of which fish are composed is extremely ready to run into incipient putrefac- tion, and that all the consequences are ascribable to the state of obscure and yet undefined putridity in which they are eaten. Although I do not deny the morbid and irritating quality of putrid food—for I shall hereafter have occasion to mention seve- ral cases of gastritis, which I saw originate from such food— yet it may be replied to this last explanation, that such surfeits as they are often called, gastric disturbances, cutaneous eruptions, and other distressing affections, from a fish diet, frequently take place, when the muscle of a fish is fresh and firm, and exhibits no sign of the slightest decay, and that the effect of temperatm-e is by no means invariable. 3. A large proportion, and to the pathologist, the most inter- esting one, of the animal poisons, is the result of morbid secretion. We may again sub-divide this class into two—the first, consist- ing in some change in the qualities of one of the established or