A lecture on diarrhoea and cholera, their nature, symptoms, treatment and prevention / by John Dixon.

  • John Dixon
Date:
1871
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A lecture on diarrhoea and cholera, their nature, symptoms, treatment and prevention / by John Dixon. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service. The original may be consulted at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service.

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    of chemistry TiOv the use of the microscope has succeeded in detecting. This poison appears to be germinated in the cholera evacuations in the coui-se of a few hovire after they have been passed, of ascending into the air and being borne to a distance, of attaching itself to articles of clothing and other movables, and thus being conveyed fi'om place to place.. It also appears to be capable of propagating itself either in air or in water when these are contaminated with organic impxirities in a decoinposing state. No other theory so satisfactorily explains the coiii'se of the pestilence and the well marked instances of its propagation. Hence the abso- lute necessity of disinfecting all the discharges and clothing of a cliolera ji^i-tient, and the observ^ance of strict personal cleanliness on the jjart of the attendants, and the great im- portance of pure water and free ventilation. The disease does not depend upon atmospheric conditions, although certain states of the air—as a dense atmosphere charged with heat and moisture-—may favour the germination or diffusion of the poison, or increase the susceptibility of indi- viduals. Dr. Goodeve, an eminent authority on this suljject, says :— Neither climate, nor season, nor earth, nor ocean seem to have arrested its course or to have altered its features. It was equally as destructive at St. Petei-sburg and Moscow as it was in India—as fierce and irresistible amongst the snows of Russia as in the sunburnt region of India ; as destructive in the vapouiy distiicts of Burmah aS' in the parched provinces of Hindustan. The opposite states- of heat and cold—humidity and dryness, high andlowl)aro- metric states, ikc.—have prevailed or been excluded M'ithout banishing the disease. It has been known to cease after heavy falls of rain, and to decline after a hurricane. The characteristic features of this disease are —Vomiting and pui-ging of a fluid resembling Av^ater in which rice has been boiled ; cram])s of the extremities ; extreme corpse-like collapse; remjirkable reduction of the temperature of the- body ; suppression of the secretions of bile and urine ; sense of oppression about the chest ; and its high rate of mortality.. If the ])atient recovers from the collapse he often sutlers from a peculiar secondary fever of a typhoid character. If he (lies in a state of collapse the body often becomes mucli warmer after death, and sometimes there are muscular con- tractions which nu)ve the limbs even two houi-s or longer
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