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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![among children suffering from febrile disorders ; and further, that the presence of acetone in the urme appears to be related dii-ectly to the intensity of the febrHe process. But, as yet, we neither know for certain the place at which acetone originates, the materials out of which it is constructed, the precise effects on different tissues, nor its ultimate fate in the metaboUsm of the tissues. It appears probable, how- ever, that nitrogenous disintegrations may be the source of this chemical body.** In such blood poisoning there is great muscular feebleness; the pulse is quickened; and deep slow breathmg is induced like that of alcoholic poisoning, followed by coma and antesthesia. Suddenly the chronic poisoning takes on an acute form hke delirium tremens,-]- when death speedily ensues. In view of the extraordinary activity of some of these alkaloids—the ptomaines and leucomaines—we cannot wonder at the violent symptoms which sometimes occur after the use of tainted meat, nor even at the extra- ordinary poisonous action of eggs in some persons ; and it is probable that the diarrhoea and vomiting which are characteristic symptoms of such poisoning may be due to the decomposition of the proteid ele- ments of such kinds of food in the intestinal canal itself. Thus it comes to pass that a typically morbid or pathological series of phenomena have been seen to follow the ingestion of various animal alkaloids ; characterised especially by choleraic diarrhoea, vomit- * Lancet, vol. ii., 1885, p. 392, and vol. ii., 1887, p. 492. t Ziemssen's Cyclopsedia of Practical Medicine, vol. xvi., Art. Diabetes.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21953181_0079.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
