Observations on the nature of malignant cholera, with a view to establish correct principles of its preventions and treatment : drawn up at the request of the Westminster Medical Society / by A. P. W. Philip.
- Philip, Alexander Philip Wilson, 1770-1847.
- Date:
- 1832
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Observations on the nature of malignant cholera, with a view to establish correct principles of its preventions and treatment : drawn up at the request of the Westminster Medical Society / by A. P. W. Philip. 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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![[ ^ ] CHAP. I. OF THE SYMPTOMS AND NATURE OF MALIGNANT CHOLERA. Keeping the foregoing positions in view, let us consider what are the necessary consequences of an injurious impression made on the nervous system, of so powerful a nature, as im- mediately to impair all its functions. The voluntary powers are, of course, enfeebled, and from the immediate influence of the nervous, on the whole of the muscular system, and consequently on the heart and blood-vessels, whose power depends on that system, the circulation languishes ; this ef- fect being- greater or less, according to the force and sud- denness of the impression made on the nervous system, and the liability of that system at the time, to sujffer from the impression. In proportion to the debilitating effect produced on the nervous system, the process by which the temperature of the body is supported fails. In the same proportion, the function of the various secreting surfaces is deranged, their proper fluids being no longer formed. The air cells and tubes of the lungs, for example, it is found, by direct experiment, become clogged with phlegm, in consequence of which the air can no longer effect the necessary change on the blood, so that it remains of the dark venous character, its colour gradually deepening, in proportion as the oflfice of the lungs fails. It thus becomes incapable of evolving heat, even were the due nervous influence supplied. The tem- perature therefore fails from a double cause, a failure of the agent, by whose operation on the blood, heat is disen- gaged from it, and the blood being so changed, that it is no longer capable of evolving it. llie other assimilating processes also necessarily fail, so ^ that the due structure of the vital organs is no longer pre- served. The lungs in particular, from their structure, being](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21473377_0009.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
