Lectures on auto-intoxication in disease, or, Self-poisoning of the individual / by Ch. Bouchard ; tr., with a preface and new chapters added, by Thomas Oliver.

  • Bouchard, Ch. (Charles), 1837-1915.
Date:
1906
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Lectures on auto-intoxication in disease, or, Self-poisoning of the individual / by Ch. Bouchard ; tr., with a preface and new chapters added, by Thomas Oliver. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.

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    appearance of abnormal coloring matter or of substances trans- formable into coloring matter, among which are found those that, in urines, take on a red coloration under the influence of perchloride of iron—e.g., acetone. I also mention leucin, tyrosin, and the imperfect excrementitious products which arise from insufficient elaboration on the part of the liver; many other toxic substances, too, of which I know neither the names nor the constitution, but whose presence in morbid urines I shall dem- onstrate to you physiologically. All these substances are capable of producing forms of intoxication, among which I will mention eclampsia, acholia, diabetic coma, and many other grave con- ditions, as also numerous indispositions. [During pregnancy poisons are formed in the mother and foetus which circulate in the maternal and foetal blood. Upon the mother is thrown the burden of eliminating by the kidneys, liver, intestine, skin, and lungs the bulk of the poison formed within the two organisms. When these poisons are retained auto- intoxication is produced which varies in degree from heighten- ing of the arterial tension, headache, gastric disturbance, and lassitude to convulsive seizures as in puerperal eclampsia. The urine under these circumstances usually contains albumin. That errors of diet often induce puerperal eclampsia there is no doubt. I have seen pregnancy advance normally until some such im- proper food as lobster, pork pie, etc., was eaten ravenously, when as the result of the entrance into the blood of imperfectly di- gested products or intestinal poisons eclampsia followed. The presence of these toxins in the blood induces structural alterations in the renal epithelia and as a consequence renal debris, tube casts, are present in the urine along with albumin. If the patient lives, the morbid changes are, for the most part, tem- porary, for they disappear on cessation of the pregnancy. We are familiar with the dropsical legs of women seen near the end of pregnancy, but it occasionally happens that there is in addi- tion to the auto-intoxication from intestines and kidneys, an hepatic toxaemia as well. The liver becomes enlarged and tender, the patient slightly icteric, the stools pale, fluid appears in the abdominal cavity, and there are albumin and bile in the urine. It is not until the pregnancy has been brought to a natural or an