Observations on morbid poisons, chronic and acute : the first comprehending syphilis, yaws, sivvens, elephantiasis and the anomala confounded with them, the second the acute contagions, particularly the variolus & vaccine / by Joseph Adams.
- Date:
- 1807
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Observations on morbid poisons, chronic and acute : the first comprehending syphilis, yaws, sivvens, elephantiasis and the anomala confounded with them, the second the acute contagions, particularly the variolus & vaccine / by Joseph Adams. 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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![find this author confounding together coagulation, consolidation under atmospherical temperature [or jellying] and congelation [or freezing], which is the more remarkable, because the freezing of blood was among the experiments he must have read a few minutes before, as contrasted with coagulation. It is equally surprising, too, that he should have overlooked Mr. Hunter’s proof that the blood does coagulate [not indeed congeal] within the body, and even within the vessels, without any aneurism. It is true, it coagulates when out of the body, but there is reason to believe not when it is dead ; for if an animal is killed so instantaneously that no contrac- tion of the muscles follows, that is, that the body never stiffens, the blood likewise never coagulates. This coagulation of blood in the living vessels, reminds me of a passage in another writer, whom, though very different from the former, I am inclined to bring forward in illustration of the subject. Dr. Beddoes, in his edition of Brown’s Elements, has the following note: “ Mr. Hunter, who deserves so much praise for ascertaining facts, has been led astray in some of his attempts to establish prin- ciples by a different, but a very curious species of delusion. . In treating of that obscure subject, for instance, the coagulation of the blood, he observes, that it sometimes takes place very quickly, as in mortification ; but then 4 it is to answer some good purpose, and arises from necessity, which appears to act as a stimulus in dis- posing the blood to coagulate.’ He adds, that by e actions taking place from necessity, effects are meant which arise from some un- usual or unnatural change going on in the parts, and become a stimulus to action. The stimuli from this cause may vary exceed- ingly among themselves; but as we are unable to investigate them, I have included them under this general term, stimulus of necessity— On the Blood, p. 24.—It may be laid down as a rule in logic, that general terms ought never to be employed^ unless we can substitute](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b2194653x_0019.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
