Medical diagnosis : with special reference to practical medicine : a guide to the knowledge and discrimination of diseases / by J. M. Da Costa.

  • Da Costa, J. M. (Jacob Mendes), 1833-1900.
Date:
1890
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Medical diagnosis : with special reference to practical medicine : a guide to the knowledge and discrimination of diseases / by J. M. Da Costa. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University Libraries/Information Services, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University.

    954/1016 (page 948)
    during decay. The poisoniug bv these ptomoines from milk and eggs and other substances has ah'cady been mentioned. Fre- quently the ptomaine poisoning resembles that ot the vegetable alkaloids, such as of morphine, codeine, and veratrine. Besides these forms of animal poisoning, which are produced by the direct contact with the virus, or at all events by its intro- duction into the system through the stomach, we find morbid states occasioned by animal poisons which arise from decomposing bodies or excretions, or from the crowding of many together, par- ticmlarly of those of uncleanly habits, or of the wounded. These poisons reach the blood for the most part by the lungs, in the shape of poisonous cxlialatioTis. They are very depressing in their action, may lead to low fevers, or to septicaemia, and in the case of the wounded to pyasmia and to hospital gangrene. Persistent nausea, too, and a lowei'ing of all vital energy are not uncom- monly observed in those who breathe continuously the foul air under the circumstances alluded to,—as in hospitals and in prisons in which thorough cleanliness is not enforced and due regard is not paid to ventilation. In some persons deleterious emanations from the human body give rise to a form of toxsemia, one of the chief features of which is the marked anorexia which attends the great debilitv.* The exposure to animal effluvia may also excite violent diar- rhoea, or even symptoms like those of cholera, certainly like those of severe attacks of cholera morbus. Of the occurrence of the former we have an illustration in the dissecting-room diarrhoea, which is usually attended with very fetid discharges, and may be accompanied by colicky pains, by nausea and vomiting, and by headache. The same kind of diarrhoea also happens in those who clean privies, or who are exposed to the emanations arising from sewers; or dysentery or choleraic attacks may follow the exposure. Nay, as in instances recorded by Becquerel, the instant disengage- ment of large quantities of putrid gases, arising from bodies far advanced in decomposition, where coffins have been opened, has caused sudden deaths, or has resulted in so serious a state of poison- ing as to give rise to very grave illnesses, having mostly a fatal * See Dr. Hunt's case, desci-ibed hy himself, in Pennsylvania Hospital Re- ports, vol. i.