An approximation and research after the choleraic principle, and the means to render the causes innocuous.

  • Booth, G. R.
Date:
1854
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An approximation and research after the choleraic principle, and the means to render the causes innocuous. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    THE CHOLERAIC PRINCIPLE. The following are a few hints, founded on unmistakeable facts, respecting the disease now again located amongst us, throwing out sug- gestions for an easy remedy ; and if they are good for anything, the Medical profession can easily apply their principles to advantage. It is said by some that the cause of Cholera has to be sought for in atmospherical influences, Why should it not rather be said, that it is in gaseous compounds ? for the nature and properties of the atmosphere being known, it is not difficult to find out such an action amongst them as would of itself produce effects as direful as the disease called Cholera; nay, even under certain circumstances, that very disease itself. For instance:—By the abstraction of oxygen from the atmosphere, or the presence of an undue proportion of nitrogen, it would follow, as a matter of course, that new combinations of gaseous bodies with the nitrogen would be made, which would act on substantive matter in a peculiar manner. Suppose, therefore, that nitrogen were unduly present in the atmosphere, this, uniting with carbon, which is ever found in the air in one form or another, whether as carbonic acid gas, or in compounds of hydrogen and carbon, would form cyanogen,* or prussic acid, under certain circumstances. Now the Cholera bears out such an hypothesis as this, for its action is precisely what cyanogen, or prussic acid, would be on the human frame.| In proof of this, let us enquire whether the localities and cir- t By a very gentle heat, prussic acid may be evolved in vapour. Inhalations of prussic acid up the nostrils produce sickness. Its specific gravity is little lighter than air, being, -947G. Ure says it is impossible to doubt that hydrogen enters into the composition of prussic acid. Prussic acid, when compared with other animal products, is distinguished by the great quantity of nitrogen it contains, by the small quantity of hydrogen found in it, and especially by the total absence of all oxygen. * Nitrogen, 1 eq , carbon, 2 eq., make cyanogen. U