Essay on cholera infantum / by M.L. Knapp.

  • Knapp, M. L. (Moses L.), 1799-1879
Date:
1855
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Essay on cholera infantum / by M.L. Knapp. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

    65/96 (page 65)
    6S?^ tlie hypothetical, and the obscure, rather] than the plain, rational, and truthful; at least, so it appears to me, for who does not see the great leading feature to be hemorrJiage in all three of the supposed distinct diseases ? no matter whether white, red, black, or blue, be the blood that is exhaled or in- filtrated. No matter from what tissue it escape, it is, after all, but the sign manual of scorhutus. No matter whether vomited, purged, spit, micturated, coughed, sneezed, or otherwise liberated, the principle is the same, the pathology the same. Who does not see the same overwhelming, great, and sudden law of collapse claiming Cholera and Cholera In- fantum to be, unmistakeably of scorbutic character ? Who does not see the solids vanishing into thin air; the softening and disintegration of all the tissues; the ramollissement of the brain ; the sponginess and porosity of the mucous mem- branes, and consequent leakage; the same of the dermoid tissues, and consequent petechial ecchymoses; the same softening of, and infiltration in, parenchymatous structures —in a word, the impoverished blood, and the all but sphace- lating solids ; with such feeble reaction as the starved powers of life are able to manifest ? And who so blind as not to see that, the acids which congulate albumen, harden the tissues, and by their chemical reactions promote excretion, are the rational therapeutic remedies, aided by tonics, astrin- gents, vinous stimulants, and the concentrated elements of a wholesome nutriticn ? EVIDENCES DEETVED FROM THERAPEUTICS. The evidences derived from the administration of remedies are numerous. They might be made to embrace a lengthy analysis of cases, running through a series of twenty years ; but as this essay is already extended to a greater length than was designed in the outset, and more especially as I dislike to detail cases, possessing as they do generally, much simi- larity, I will but succinctly elaborate this head, barely suffi- cient to show with clearness the testimony derived from