Contributions to military and state medicine : first volume / by John Martin.
- Martin John, 1848?-1925.
- Date:
- 1881
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Contributions to military and state medicine : first volume / by John Martin. 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.
292/332 page 286
![GENERAL SUMMARY. Whether beyond or not the possiUlity of such verification it would be presumptuous to say. We may maintain (but, indeed, I doubt that even this can be scientifically proved) that the simplest process of origination of the simplest form of diarrhoea IS absolutely understood, being due to a non-vital contraction brought about by a mechanical stimulus. Thus far our vaunted physics may illumine us, but surely at present no farther. The influence which originates diarrhoea, dependent on the presence of parasites in the intestinal canal, is probably to be referred in many instances, but not in all, to mechanical irritation. As regards the more complex forms of diarrhoea caused by the ingestion of organic matters, either fresh or putridinous, with drinking water, we are not in a position to describe the influence of their origin more definitely than to refer it generally to chemico-physiological action. The influence of I^egarding this question the following conclusion drinking water ^as arrived at (page 170) :—That the only form of SarEa^^^*'°^ diarrhoea regarding which we can be certain that its propagation is due to an agent which is carried by drinking water is that dependent on the presence of parasites in the intestinal canal. Although there are some slight grounds for believing that the pythogenic forms of diarrhoea may be transmitted in some manner from one individual to another, we have no good reason to believe that such transmission is due to propagation by the influence of drinking water. In the propa- gation of entozoal diarrhoea we have a ty]}e of true propagation. The passage of an ovum from one intestine into another, and there developing into a replica of the disease cause which existed in the first, and setting up disease absolutely identical. It is not difficult to understand what the influence of drinking water is under these circumstances. It acts simply as a vehicle for the carriage of life. As regards the propagation of this disease, most persons, I suppose, would rest satisfied with this explanation; but in some other diseases, under circumstances exactly similar, they insist on inquiring what this life or ovum or germ is. Doubtless, contagion difi'ers in many respects from a parasitic ovum; but as regards the point I am at present considering they are absolutely analogous, both being the carriers of a specific modification of vitality. If in the one instance we are satisfied with the explanation that a specific](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21703577_0292.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
