Mechanical treatment of cholera / by a physician.

  • Physician.
Date:
1866
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Mechanical treatment of cholera / by a physician. 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.

    9/12 (page 9)
    are relatively increased in frequency, and so, while oxygen is being absorbed, carbonic acid is being- eliminated, as well as other impurities. Since there occurs a constant drain of the watery portions of the blood through the coats of the intestines, at any rate in most cases, it will be necessary to give water frequently to keep the blood in a fluid state, and so facilitate its circulation. Alcohol also will, no doubt, assist in raising suppressed nervous action, inasmuch as it acts on the nervous tissue directly through the blood, causing it to enter more rapidly into combination with oxygen, just as the combustion of an inflammable sub- stance is enhanced by the addition of a substance more inflammable. Some years ago I received an important letter from the manager of an extensive salt works in Cheshire, to wThom I had explained my theory of Cholera. In this letter he informed me that, although a large number of his workmen had been seized with Cholera, not one of them had died; and he accounted for this success by the treatment which was adopted, viz., as soon as a man was attacked he was carried and placed on the hot stoves, his body was kept in motion, and frequent draughts of brandy-and-water administered.