Observations on morbid poisons, chronic and acute : the first comprehending syphilis, yaws, sivvens, elephantiasis, and the anomala confounded with them. The second the acute contagions, particularly the variolous & vaccine / by Joseph Adams.

  • Adams, Joseph, 1756-1818.
Date:
1807
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Observations on morbid poisons, chronic and acute : the first comprehending syphilis, yaws, sivvens, elephantiasis, and the anomala confounded with them. The second the acute contagions, particularly the variolous & vaccine / by Joseph Adams. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by King’s College London. The original may be consulted at King’s College London.

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    Coagulation is totally different, for it is a new species of com- bination. The freezing of blood may be called congelation. When Mr. Hunter made this apology for the incorrect asso- ciations of antiquity, he little expected it possible that in our own times a teacher could fall into such an error. On this account he contents himself with a note, containing the few hints above tran- scribed. It must be admitted, that his mode of expresssion has no claim to elegance; but it is intelligible and modest, not only as he shows an unwillingness at altering the language of others, but because, when he feels himself obliged to do so, he only reminds his readers of those distinctions, the necessity of which he conceives need not be enforced. Though such caution and modesty is not inconsistent with an agreeable style: yet smoothly flowing periods are much more readily formed, when such incumbrances are dis- pensed with. fS But what harmony, says another writer, he can find betwixt the occasional, voluntary, regulated contractions of the living solid, and this sudden, irretrievable, inorganic coagulation of the blood, I cannot conceive. Does not jelly coagulate ; and what is it but a part of the blood ? Does not glew congeal, dissolve, and congeal again, yet what is it but an animal jelly ? Does the blood itself ever congeal till it is out of the body, or extravasated in aneurismal sacs ? When it is out of the body it coagulates; when it coagulates it is dead. Coagulation is so far from resembling the contractions of the living body, that it is the marked character of dead animal matter, which you melt and coagulate again and again. Shall we then define life, by saying coagulation is the mark of the vital principle ? If so, we give the mark of its death as the proof of its living power. I have selected this extract as a specimen, to show how easily we are led astray when inattentive to words. After being taught better by an examination of the very passage I have referred to, we