Thoughts on the present theories of the algide stage of cholera / by John Cockle.

  • Cockle, John, 1814-1901
Date:
1866
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Thoughts on the present theories of the algide stage of cholera / by John Cockle. 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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    cholera. In the first examples hut little actual transudation may ensue; but here, loss and shock are, practically, convertible terms. Let us again select one or two examples of remedies acting like poisons by a relatively overdose. Who can have had much experience in the use of elaterium in the dropsical effusions of cardiac diseases and not have witnessed well-marked examples of impending collapse follow from the enormous drain of serum from the blood, the rapid sinking of the pulse and temperature, with cyanotic tint, requiring at once the liberal use of stimulants, opium and warmth, and all this from what Avas from the idiosyncrasy of the patient, a relatively overdose ? and who could resist the conclusion that if the action of the poison did not cease death must ensue ? The entire class of remedies of this description administered with the direct intent of causing watery drain must, if true to their mission, neces- sarily rob the blood of its fluid constituents rendering it thicker and more concentrated for a time. They equally give the mucous lining a sodden, succulent appearance and force away its epithelial lining. In such a case, however, the balance of the circulation is soon restored by the sucking in by the vessels of the serous fluid effused into the serous sacs and connective tissue by the diseases for which they are administered. Dr. Wood, of Philadelphia, no ordinary authority, states that in a case of poisoning by croton oil there existed vomiting, purging, burning pain in the oesophagus, great prostration, with appear- ances resembling those of the collapse of cholera. These few examples show how certain agencies may act, and, so to speak, foreshadow cholera. They are, however, unfit for more than superficial comparison in consequence of the associate irritation they induce from concentration of the agent. These toxics agree in action with that of cholera in the great fact of their specific power of soliciting a transudation process from the intestinal capillaries; they differ not so much in intensity as in continuousness of action, their action ceasing with the dose; that of cholera is continuous from the incessant multiplication of the poison. We next proceed to the examination of affections having direct kinsmansliip with cholera. The symptomatic difference being one simply of intensity.
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