An inquiry, physiological and pathological, into the proximate cause of cholera / [Protheroe Smith].

  • Smith, Protheroe, 1809-1889
Date:
1835
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An inquiry, physiological and pathological, into the proximate cause of cholera / [Protheroe Smith]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    more violent efforts to remove the cause of offence. This involuntary and unusual exertion of thesensorium being passed, a ioss of power is induced — a state of collapse, proportionate to the- extent and violence of the previous excitement ; its different degrees con¬ stituting languor and lassitude, interruption to the involuntary functions of the body, syncope, derange¬ ment of intellect, and, finally, death. Mental disquietude, or atmospheric influence, often exists as an exciting cause of diseased action, pro¬ ducing effects on thesensorium similar to those caused by external bodily injuries, and often inducing more suddenly the results above enumerated, as is instanced by imbecility or death occasioned by fright or grief, and by epidemic disorders arising from miasmata and other like sources, Titus, even when the exciting cause of disease is not cognizable to our senses, it often produces sequelae more violent than the results of extensive corporeal injury; for instance, after ex¬ posure to pestilential miasms, the citadel of sensation and involuntary motion is so assailed, that the imma¬ terial principle or nervous stimulus, on which all the animal functions depend, is excited into increased and violent activity, inducing the various symptoms oi fever, &c., consisting at first of an excitement or in- crease of action in natural functions, — circulation, respiration, secretions, &c., and the depression of nervous influence, consecutive on an unnatural exer¬ tion of that power. This collapse, after great energy of the nervous power, must be a matter of daily ob¬ servation, since it is produced not only by morbid
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