Notes on the epidemic cholera / by R. Hartley Kennedy.

Date:
1846
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Notes on the epidemic cholera / by R. Hartley Kennedy. 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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    lating fluid, and especially of the vital heat which it constantly supplies, may produce the same effect. This, indeed, appears to lay the foundation of the cold stage, and the chain of distressing symptoms that accompany it. This alternative of theories,* this halting between two opinions, so long as it were on a mere matter of speculation, and the patient did not suffer, would be of little consequence ; but it is now high time for the profession to come to some decision, if possible ; for there need be no hesitation in supposing, that of two opposite systems, both cannot be harmless, and some difference of result must be expected, when one bleeds to relieve oppression of the brain—and another to relieve congestion of the liver—when one gives the most acrid stimulants as excitement—and an- other scruple doses of calomel, and laudanum by tea-spoonfuls as sedative —and finally, when one declares that opium alone is to be depended on, and another that it is the worst medicine which can be exhibited! Such contrariety of opinions can only have originated in the unphilosophical view in which the disease has been considered. The two first cases I saw have been already men- * The opinion of one inquirer upon this subject is, that the symp. toms portrayed to us in an attack of this disease are the consequences of an inflammation of the stomach, another of the liver, and a third of tlie mtestines, and each of these opinions has its advocates ; but it IS .vorthy of remark, that in proof of the little reliance placed upon these doctrmes by their supporters, their practice is uniformly the same.-Mr. Chapman's Letter, Madras Rep. p. 181
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