On the animal alkaloids : the ptomaïnes, leucomaïnes, and extractives in their pathological relations / by Sir William Aitken.
- Date:
- 1889
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: On the animal alkaloids : the ptomaïnes, leucomaïnes, and extractives in their pathological relations / by Sir William Aitken. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.
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![Let us now analyse the conditions of M. Chomel's patzent a little further in the light of more recent iinowledge regarding the metabohsm of the body. We know that certain medicinal agents are cumulative m their action, e.g., digitaline and strychnine; so also do we know that extractives are similarly accumulative m the system after their elaboration. Let us suppose that in this given case the elaboration of the ex- tractives and alkaloids in this young lad's body is represented by 10, and that their elimination is repre- sented by 8; we have then a storing up or accumulation of these extractives to the extent of 2 per day of auto-infective elements. But suppose his walk had been much longer, and that it had extended over 20 days instead of 2; then instead of storing up twice 2, he would have stored up twice 20; and instead of a comparatively simple or mild attack of the toxic fever of prostration or of febrile symptoms from over- exertion —an auto-infective fever of short duration- he would have suffered from a febrile intoxication more complete, more persistent, and more serious. He would in all probability have developed a form of typhus, such as has been known to occur in soldiers on a long and harassing march, of which there are many instances in the European campaigns of the latter half of the last and beginning of the present century. But in the typhus of armies another important factor (besides over-exertion) intervenes which must also be reckoned with, and that is the massing together of large bodies of troops, and all that must result from this. The ]iosious effects of air in places where many persons have been breathing, have been attributed hitherto to carbonic acid ; but recent experiments con-](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21953181_0046.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
