Case of cholera, in which the blood was remarkably altered / By James M. Cowan.
- Cowan, James M.
- Date:
- 1854
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Case of cholera, in which the blood was remarkably altered / By James M. Cowan. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service. The original may be consulted at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service.
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![body of this woman, there was not a single morbid ap])earance which could be h id as accounting for the cause of death. And it can- not fail to attract notice, that although we had all the most charac- teristic phenomena of true Asiatic cholera developed during the life- time of the patient, we did not discover after death one of the usual morbid appearances, such as they are, met with in the bodies of in- dividuals, the subjects of malignant cholera. Various questions of great interest arise from the study of the case, which, I regret to say, are difficult of solution. In the first place, what led to these bodies 1 How is theii- presence to be ex- plained ? Only three hypotheses are admissible—1st, This diseased state existed antecedent to the attack of the fatal disease; 2dly, It was the result of the morbific influence of the cholera itself; 3dly, It was consequent on the treatment employed. Now, it seems to me the first of these is the most probable explanation. This becomes appa- rent when we pass in review the preceding history of the patient— her delicate state of health, irregular habits of life, liability to diai- rhcea.'^nd sickness ; when we consider the pecuHar appearance pre- ^seiifed by the spleen, quite unusual in Asiatic cholera, and the mode of death, which also is comparatively rare, we can come to no other conclusion, but that these bodies, found in the blood and tis- sues, unconnected with the essential disease cholera, nevertheless had a powerful influence on the disastrous issue of the case. The other hypotheses, I regret to say, from want of data, I^ can neither support nor refute. They form proper subjects of inquiry. In the second place, what are these bodies ? I'li^t they are, in some mode or another, connected with the blood is incontestible, from their being found in that fluid, and so universally amid the other tissues of the body, as can be explained on no other hypothe- sis. Are they, then, a modification of the red corpuscle 1 Are they an eai'ly or retrograde stage in the development or decay of the wloite blood corpuscle ? Or have they any other relation to these boches ? I regret to say I have no ^answer to give these ques- tions. All I can do in the meantime is merely to chronicle the fact of such bodies as described having been found in the blood and tis- sues of a woman who died presenting the true Asiatic type of cholera, and concurrent with a peculiar state of the spleen. MURIIAV AND OIUU, I'ttlNTlSAS, EWKUUItil II.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21364710_0006.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
