On epidemic cholera and diarrhoea : their prevention and treatment by sulphur / by John Grove.
- Grove, John, 1815-1895
- Date:
- 1865
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: On epidemic cholera and diarrhoea : their prevention and treatment by sulphur / by John Grove. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.
19/44 page 19
![]0 art; and over-officiousness in checking diarrhoea, is, I believe, a fruitful source of injury to those who resort to the practice, —I mean, taking the bulk of cases. If it be true that the ma- jority of diarrhoea attacks would of themselves subside, by an ordinary attention to diet, which I believe, from some expe- rience, to be literally the case, we must attribute the recovery to the vis vitce of the individual, in whom the power of resist- ance is superior to the vis morbi. It would appear to be the most scientific method to wait the result of nature’s powers before we materially interfere with them, especially too if the diarrhoea of cholera is to be regarded as a means of throwing oflf something from the system, as in the eruption on the skin in measles, scarlatina, smallpox, etc. Were we to endeavour to check these eruptions at the outset, much constitutional disturbance would probably arise, and considerable mischief might accrue. We are not without evidence that such has been the result over and over again, nor are we without proof that the sudden arrest of diarrhoea by chalk-mixture and opium, has been pro- ductive of much evil; many instances have come under my observation, as well as that of some medical men with whom I have conversed on the subject, where the patients, believing the diarrhoea to be the essence of the disease, they supposed it but necessary to check that and the recovery would be im- mediate. To their cost, and our sad experience, it is found that though anodynes and absorbents arrest diarrhoea, they have no power over cholera in an advanced stage; indeed, severe vomiting and spasms have often succeeded a sudden arrest of diarrhoea, during the prevalence of this disease in my district, and I have invariably found that the return of the diarrhoea, moderated by treatment, is a most favourable symptom. Looking at the disease in this light, then, as one bearing certain analogies to. other epidemic diseases, is it not a fair question to ask how far it is possible for epidemic diar- rhoea'to be associated with epidemic or Asiatic cholera? We have before observed that scarlet-fever, smallpox, and measles occasionally show themselves in a most malignant, occasionally H :l](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b2234651x_0019.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
