Observations on morbid poisions, chronic and acute. The first comprehending syphilis, yaws, sivvens, elephantiasis, and the anomala confounded with them. The second and acute contagions, particularly the variolous and vaccine / [Joseph Adams].

  • Joseph Adams
Date:
1807
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Observations on morbid poisions, chronic and acute. The first comprehending syphilis, yaws, sivvens, elephantiasis, and the anomala confounded with them. The second and acute contagions, particularly the variolous and vaccine / [Joseph Adams]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    impression, ‘are more so in proportion as they are unaccustomed to it. It is now pretty generally admitted, that a new-born infant, if not infected in utero, is insensible to the contagious. or infectious properties of the atmosphere which his mother breathed during utero gestation, and in which he is born: he would probably continue so always, if never removed from it. Physicians and nurses escape the infection of an atmosphere which is deleterious to others, till it acquires properties to which even they are unaccustomed. Most contagious diseases affect the same person constitutionally only once through life. This is well known in the small-pox, and probably the same happens in syphilis; for though the local effect may be pro- duced an indefinite number of times, we have no cases on record in which the constitution has been infected from more than one source. Qdly, Mr. Hunter, who, as I before remarked, first saw the necessity of a distinction between the original and morbid animal poisons, ebserved three states of the body which are necessary for the existence of the latter. Susceptibility, Disposition,* and Action. | Susceptibility is either of a part or of the whole constitution, and depends on-the state of either of them at the time it is exposed to the influence of a morbid poison. If the susceptibility exists when the poison is applied, the pis- position must take place: and after.a certain period, various ac- cording to the laws of the poison, the action will follow. That susceptibility is necessary we know, because we find that some people cannot be affected by a poison, to the influence of which the rest of mankind are subject. We find also that some constitutions, or even some parts, are insensible to a poison at one * Disposition must be carefully distinguished from pre-disposition. Pre-disposition has no reference to morbid poisons, but implies an original, usually an hereditary formation in the constitution, which renders it liable to fall into certain diseases ‘peculiar to certain climates, or excited by certain causes, as scrophula or madness.
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