Papers relative to the disease called cholera spasmodica in India, now prevailing in the north of Europe : with extracts of letters, reports, and communications received from the continent.

  • Great Britain. Privy Council.
Date:
1831
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Papers relative to the disease called cholera spasmodica in India, now prevailing in the north of Europe : with extracts of letters, reports, and communications received from the continent. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by King’s College London. The original may be consulted at King’s College London.

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    ' lips were covered with sordes, the state of the skin varied, chills ' alternating with heats, the pulse became extremely quick, weak, ' and tremulous, hiccough, catching of the breath, great restless- ' ness and deep moaning succeeded, and the patient soon sunk ' incoherent and insensible under the debilitating effects of low ' nervous fever, and frequent dark, tarry alvine discharges.' It is to be observed that the able author of the Bengal Report doubts whether these symptoms can be considered as * forming any inte- ' grant or necessary part of the disorder itself,' or whether they belonged to the bilious seizures of the climate. A reference to the annexed account of the second stage of the disease at Mos- cow, during the coldest season of the year, will probably satisfy this doubt, by proving that climate was unconcerned in producing them. Appearances on Dissection. The appearances after death varied much in different indivi- duals, and apparently according to the duration of the disease. In those who died within eight or ten hours, the stomach was generally found in a relaxed, dilated state, loaded with the same fluids as had been thrown up during life : sometimes containing food, which had been swallowed and not returned, although the vomiting had been excessive. The internal and peritoneal coats of the stomach were, in these instances, pale and bloodless; the small and great intestines bore the same appearance; the arch of the colon, when the spasms had reached the abdomen before death, and sometimes the sigmoid flexure of it, were so contracted as to be less in diameter than the duodenum. The former was most commonly observed, the latter only occasionally. No ap- pearance of bile or faeces\vas found in the intestines. The bladder was generally empty. The liver, and vessels which pass to the vena cava inferior, were turgid with blood ; this turgescence ex- tended to the vena cava superior, to the right side of the heart, and in some instances to the left ventricle : blood was in the same manner stagnant in the lungs, marking a congestion in the whole venous circulation of the larger vessels : the blood in the vessels was unusually black, resembling tar in colour and consistence. It is worthy of remark, that this local accumulation of blood was uniformly found in all fatal cases, whether'they were of rapid or slower termination, and was particulaHy^vident, as might be ex- pected, in those in which the oppression of the breathing had pre- vailed with most violence. The gall-bladder was turgid with bile ; the gall-duct commonly pervious, but bearing no marks of bile having recently passed. In cases of longer duration, the same leading appearances were observed, but often with great addition. The vessels of the