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.

    6/12 (page 6)
    ment of Cholera, because perhaps they add their aid to consummate its maturity.* Such being the case, we have then the following facts in support of our views. It is a fact, apparent in Cholera, that the veins become blue, and such is the action of prussic acid when applied to the human blood. It is a fact, that wherever Cholera rages, those parts most elevated from the earth have the fewest attacks. In Glasgow, for instance, the houses are generally very lofty, but it was noticed that in the highest stories or flats of these houses, their inmates escaped an attack, whilst in the lower stories Cholera prevailed, and was often fatal, and this occurred in the same building. Now tlie cause was evident, for a purer air, one having more oxygen in it, would be found in the upper stories, and doubtless one of the constituents of the disease, hydrogenous gases, were located in the lower stories, which did not reach the elevation of the upper stories until it was diluted to such an extent as to be innocuous. It is a fact that not any, or very few, cases of Cholera occurred in Birmingham. What was the cause of this ? Simply that a great abundance of oxygen is liberated or produced in that town, which keeps the atmospheric air duly proportioned with oxygen and nitrogen. The standard of the atmospheric air is four-fifths nitrogen and one- fifth oxygen, and this is a mechanical mixture. The question may be asked how we account for this singular phenomenon in Birmingham ? The answer is, that an immense volume of oxygen is liberated daily there by the large quantity of nitric acid dissipated in manufac- turing purposes, and also in making nitric acid. The nitric acid used there is forty parts of pure oxygen in a liquid state, and only fourteen parts nitrogen. The whole of this oxygen is nearly all dissipated in the air when used in manufacturing purposes, making an immense volume of oxy- gen, and producing such a bulk or volume of oxygen gas as would be of itself capable of meeting and neutralising any overplus nitrogen * Cholera generally rages when vegetation has arrived at its full maturity, and when the chemical action caused by its decay begins to appear, or when such electrical phenomenon occurs as gives power to the freer expression or exhibition of gases combined with hydrogen.