Suggestions submitted to the medical practitioners of Edinburgh on the characters and treatment of the malignant cholera ... / Published for the benefit of the Board of Health.

  • Abercrombie, John, 1780-1844
Date:
1832
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Suggestions submitted to the medical practitioners of Edinburgh on the characters and treatment of the malignant cholera ... / Published for the benefit of the Board of Health. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    evacuations,—namely, a pale watery matter, which is compared to rice-water, or thin gruel. There is generally some griping pain in the bowels, and more or less pain and tenderness in the epigastric region ; sometimes shooting with considerable violence from the right side across the region of the stomach. In some cases, the febrile symptoms seem to be more distinctly marked, with flushing of the countenance and suffusion of the eyes. The tongue is generally white, and the appetite impaired. There is occa¬ sionally vomiting, and sometimes cramp of the limbs, and of the muscles of the abdomen ;—but, in other cases, this stage passes over without either cramps or vomiting. During this important period of the disease, the patient may be going about, and even attending to his usual employment. Its duration seems to vary exceedingly.—In Newcastle it is re¬ presented to me as having been from one day to three or four.—In some of the Sunderland cases, it appears to have gone on for a week. In Haddington, its du¬ ration is said to have been from a few hours to one day;—and in all these places, it seems to have been, in many instances, scarcely perceptible. This differ¬ ence appears to depend, in as far as we can at present judge, on the constitution of the patient. It is pro¬ bable that this stage will be most distinctly formed, and of longest continuance, in those who have been previously in good health ; and that it will be least perceptible in individuals who have been pre¬ viously debilitated by disease, privations, or intem¬ perance. In Haddington, accordingly, where this period of the disease seems to have been less remark¬ able than in some other places, I am informed that at least four-fifths of the deaths took place in persons who were broken down by long continued and ruin¬ ous excesses in spirituous liquors.