Changes of the blood in disease / translated from the French of M. Gibert by John H. Dix.

  • Gibert, C.-M. (Camille Melchior), 1797-1866.
Date:
1841
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Changes of the blood in disease / translated from the French of M. Gibert by John H. Dix. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    it acquires in ordinary scurvy, either liquefying it by injecting a solution of subcarbonate of soda, or defibrinating it directly and re-introducing into the vessels the blood at first taken by venesec- tion, and afterwards beat up in a vessel by means of a glass rod. But a mere clinical observation suffices to demonstrate in scurvy a condition of fluidity and dissolution of the blood, as Boerhaave ex- presses it, which satisfactorily accounts for the chief phenomena of scurvy. Sec. IV.—Typhoid Fever.—The name of putrid fever, which has so often scandalised reformers in medicine, must not be taken literally. The physicians of former days never contended for the existence in the living body of a corruption or putrefaction of the humors like that which takes place after death. Alexander de Tralles, (lib. xii, ch. 11,) had long since remarked that many ob- servers had said that fever did not originate in a putrid state pro- perly so called, frequently repeating, that the humours were heated and dried in the vessels, but that they did not putrefy. Continued putrid fevers (says Van Swieten, Comm. sur les aphor. T. ii in 4°) are those in which the humours have degenerated much from their natural condition and seem to have a tendency to putridity, and as this degeneration is more or less decided, we see different degrees of malignity in the symptoms. But clinical observation has long ago established the alteration of the blood in diseases which are called putrid. So Fernel (de Febrib. cap. v.) remarks, that the blood which is drawn from the veins in putrid fevers, is not merely fetid and dis- agreeable to the smell, but even putrid ; in such a manner that it can neither coagulate nor concrete, its fibrinous parts being as it were dissolved in the process of putrefaction. Schwenke also affirms, that blood which is taken from subjects attacked by putrid and especially pestilential fevers, appears to be in such a state of dissolution, that it cannot coagulate, that it is sometimes found to be gangrenous and putrid. The same altera- tion of the blood is seen in persons subjected to a long course of diet in whom the blood becomes putrid and alkaline. Morton (Pyretolog. part 1) says distinctly, that on bleeding a woman sick with malignant fever, the blood gave out so fetid an odour, that the surgeon and his assistants fainted. In the pestilence observed during the siege of Breda by Van der Mye (de modis Bredanis,) the blood of infected persons appeared livid, fetid, and did not coagulate. Some of the invalids moreover sunk under a frightful epistaxis, in less than four hours. Wepfer (Cicutae aq. hist, et noxae. cap. v. p. 52,) also has re- marked in malignant and petechial fevers, the most dangerous hemorrhages froTn the nose, uterus, and kidneys. He has more- over seen^blood, which had been kept for some time after its ab- straction, incapable of coagulating. Pringle, (Maladies des Armies, 1752,) and Huxham, (Casai sur