On the nature, cause, and prevention of scurvy / by Alfred B. Garrod, M.D.

  • Garrod, Alfred Baring, 1819-1907.
Date:
[1848]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the nature, cause, and prevention of scurvy / by Alfred B. Garrod, M.D. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    intermixed with uric acid crystals. The amount of potash excreted ill twenty-four horn's was much less than in health, being less than 7 grains; but a slight accident prevented a veiy accurate determi- nation of the quantity. In another case, the amount throwna out in twenty-foui* hom's was 40 oz. Sp. gr. 1*010, and acid in its reaction. (4.) Scorbutic patients, when kept under a diet ivhich gave nse to the disease, recover, lohen a fexo grains of Potash are added to their food.—In several cases wdiich came under my care, the treatment consisted in the daily administration of a few grains (from 12 to 20) of some salt of potash mixed with syrup and water. Sometimes the bitartrate, at other times the acetate, and also the carbonate and phosphate were used. All the salts appeared to act alike, and I have little doubt but the chloride of potassimn would be found equally efficacious. When the cases were thus treated, aU vegetables, milk, and malt liquors were strictly prohibited; and yet the patients rapidly recovered. Other cases w'ere treated by fresh vegetables and milk; these also recovered, but certainly not more quickly than those from whom these substances were -withheld, and potash salts sub- stituted. On looking over the works of several writers on scurv)^, I have frequently found that some Potash salt has been administered with marked benefit; thus, nitre has been recommended, nitre dis- solved in Adnegar, the bitartrate of potash, the oxalate of potassa; but the efficacy has always been ascribed to the acid contained in these substances, and no attention has been paid to the base. (5.) Tlie theory ivhich ascribes the cause of scwvy to a deficiency of Potash in the system, is capable of explaining some of its symptoms. —^Both soda and potash ai'e constant constituents of the animal bodj-, and it appears that they are not capable of replacing each other; for example, we ahvays find the potash to exist in lai'ge quantities in the ash of muscle, soda in very small quantities (BerzeUus, Liebig) ; in the ash of the blood we find the relation reversed. It appeal's also, that the muscular system requires the presence of potash, and we should therefore expect to find that where there is a deficient supply of this base, the cftect would soon be manifested in the frmctions of that system. This we find to be the case in scimy; without any amount of wasting of the body we find marked muscular debility, and this perhaps is one of the earliest symptoms of the disease. Conclusion.—I have ventured to make public this theory of the cause and nature of scm'vy sooner than I othei-wise wished, both on account of the difficulty of procming cases of this disease at the pre- sent time, and from the conviction tliat its being made known to the profession at large would be the most ready mode of having it con- firmed or (hsproved. If true, it will be seen at onc:e that its applica- tions will be of the utmost importance, and the occurrence of scurvy, both at sea and on land, can be most readily prevented, by the intro- duction of a few gi'ains of some potash salt, as the ])hosphate, chloride, tartrate, &c., into the food, or by these being taken in a separate