Histology of the cholera evacuations in man and the lower animals / by W. Lauder Lindsay, M.D.

  • William Lauder Lindsay
Date:
1856
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Histology of the cholera evacuations in man and the lower animals / by W. Lauder Lindsay, M.D. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    of common occurrence, in states of health deviating but slightly from^ the normal standard. I believe that it has been hitherto considered too much as a cause, and too little as an accidental result or concomitant of gastric disease; that it cannot be regarded in any other light than as indicative of a vitiated state of the system generally, or of the gastric mucous membrane especially, in virtue whereof the latter becomes the nidus of fungoid growths; and that its presence does not demand the exhibition of special remedies which ought rather to be directed to the amendment of the consti- tution. The mycelium and sporules of various species of fungi, constituting various forms of vegetable mould, were found in the scum of the vomit, as well as of the stools; but only at some stage of decomposition. They are found, however, under similar circum- stances, in the vomit and stools of other diseases, and, indeed, in all decomposing animal fluids, and they are, therefore, far from peculiar to cholera. The same remark may be made with regard to the presence of vibrios, which I have seen in thousands—in a state of very active movement—in vomit, very soon after it was ejected. But the fluid was in a state of incipient decomposition; these animalcules occur abundantly in all animal fluids, under similar circumstances, and their presence in the vomit and stools of cholera, therefore, can have no causal relation to the disease. They were more commonly met with in the stools than in the vomit, for the simple reason, I presume, tliat the former undergo decomposition more rapidly and readily. In the scum of one vomit, consisting in great measure of partially digested food, I found several acari and their fragments; their presence was evidently quite accidental. In one case, pus was found in the vomit; but its origin was muco-purulent sputa from a bronchitic lung. The contents of the stomach, as examined after death, were generally of a greenish, brownish, or chocolate colom', and viscid from copious admixture with mucus. However much mucus they contained, they never had a ricy appearance. In mucus scraped frora the interior of the stomach, were found small quantities of the ultimate elements of various vegetable tissues,—in other words, forms of the annular bodies, already referred to, along with epithelium, conoid, or elongated so as to possess a fusiform or fibroid appearance, generally very dark and granular; fragments of the gastric glands; mucus bands; granular corpuscles ; compound granular bodies ; and molecular debris coloured by the bile pigment. II. The Stools.—During collapse, these were generally whey-like in colour and consistence, with a sediment of curdy mucous flocculi ; sometimes they resembled potato Avater, or sage water, according to the description of the patients themselves. The sp. gr. was'usually below 1010: they were alkaline, albu- minous, and devoid of odour. As reaction and fever became successively developed, the stools gradually assumed a yellowish
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