Cholera morbus

“ If the cholera morbus question were confined, simply as a bugbear, to frighten a score of silly nervous people, it might pass over as wholly unworthy of any attention, and be suffered to live as long as a few unprincipled empirics found it their interests to keep it alive ”

“ Cholera Morbus is much more frequent in tropical and warm climates; and in northern regions in the summer and autumnal seasons; especially in unusually hot summers. The disease is not unfrequent in this island and metropolis; nor is it entirely restricted to the warm season only. The symptoms are{273} sickness and nausea, succeeded by violent vomiting and purging, of a bilious nature, with gripes, tenesmus, tension of the abdomen, anxiety, great prostration of strength, intense thirst, cardialgy, and sometimes muscular spasms in the lower extremities. ”

“ Those who see irresistible motives for dismissing all idea of contagion, look, on the contrary, for the production of cholera, to sources, admitted from remote times to have a powerful influence on our systems, though invisible—though not to be detected by the ingenuity of man, and though proved to exist only by their effects.
Many who do not believe that cholera can be propagated by contagion under ordinary circumstances, have still a strong impression that by crowding patients together, as in hospitals or in a ship, the disease may acquire contagious properties. ”

“ Before I have done, I feel called upon to say a few words upon the efficacy of fumigation as a preservative against Cholera Morbus and other infectious diseases. In regard to the first the question is settled. In Russia, throughout Germany, and I believe everywhere else in Europe, they were productive of no good, they did mischief, and were therefore discontinued. This has been verified by reports from the seats of the disease everywhere. ”

“ It depended upon them, to have spread around a far wilder and more dangerous contagion than that of Cholera Morbus, or any other disease,—the contagion of fear—and from what occurred at Cadiz, as above related, it is to be hoped our medical men will now see how much they will have it in their power, when Cholera comes, to pronounce, or to withhold sentence of desolation upon a community. The word Contagion will be the word of doom, for then the healthy will fly their homes, and the sick be deserted ”

“ True it is that the chance of taking the Cholera is a very fearful thing, if we are not fit to die: the prospect of a sudden and painful disease carrying us off in twenty-four hours, is a very terrible one, if death is without hope to us. But what if fear be taken usefully, and make us set about obtaining that which will make us justly bold? What if the thought of this new disorder, which kills those whom it does kill in so very short a time, should lead us to think seriously of death, and why it is that we fear it? ”

“ Nothing could be more contrary to the truth. All of these writers describe "cholera morbus" in nearly identical terms; they all include bilious discharges among its symptoms, and no one of them speaks of it as a mortal or even as an epidemic disease. (Compare, especially, Celsus, Aretæus, Cælius Aurelianus, and Paulus Ægineta.) Their description of sporadic cholera morbus is very precise. For example, Cælius Aurelianus says: "Cholericam passionem aiunt aliqui nominatam a fluore fellis, per os et ventrem effecto."1 ”

“ Spasmodic Cholera is a disease of modern origin. It was early in the year 1818, that accounts were brought to this country of a new and dreadful disorder that had appeared in India, by which some died almost instantaneously, and others were carried off in a few hours. It is said to have broke out first in August 1817, at Jessore near Calcutta; and, in the course of a few weeks, 10,000 persons fell victims. The inhabitants, astonished and terrified, fled in crowds to the country, to escape impending death. ”

“ The sick may in future be attended without fears for one's self, or for those with whom we live." How delightful is the simplicity of truth! Why, Sir, a morceau like this, and from an honourable man, let him call himself contagionist or what he may, is more precious at this moment than Persian turkois or Grecian gems. Make me an example, men say, of the culprits "who let the cholera morbus into Sunderland," concealed in "susceptible" articles!—yes, and that we may be on a level in other matters, destroy me some half dozen witches, too, as we were wont to do of yore. ”

“ To say the truth however, it does not appear that Cholera is a very proper name for it; for it seems much more a disease of the blood than of the bile. It is by no means always accompanied with disorder in the bowels, but it is as if a man’s life blood were suddenly poisoned; as if it were choked up so that it could not flow freely, and therefore there is a great feeling of weight and pressure about the heart and chest. The powers of life seem palsied, the legs and belly become cold and cramped, and the pulse so weak that you can scarcely feel it. ”

“ I have learned from some natives, who have lately been at Badri Nath, that that neighbourhood also has been ravaged by the cholera morbus. They cannot check the disease: it seizes them in all situations—in their houses—in the fields ”

“ It appears, on the most satisfactory authority, that the disease which has so long prevailed in the Russian dominions, and within the last six months, has been advancing in Europe, is contagious. Our correspondent in Vienna says, that it is evidently a combination of plague and cholera morbus; i.e. the general disturbance of the system is of the nature of plague, and with such a state of constitution, the affection of the chylopoietic viscera, (in consequence of which the name of cholera morbus has been, given to it,) often terminates life in the course of three hours. ”

“ The occurrence of cramps in cholera, which has bestowed upon the disease one of its titles, spasmodic, has, however, no distinctive relation to the Asiatic disease. Spasmodic phenomena occur in many cases of poisoning by corrosive and irritant agents and in ordinary cholera morbus, and in cholera infantum they are among the most alarming symptoms, assuming, as they often do, the character of general convulsions. ”

“ The habitual use of ardent spirits, in the smallest quantity, seldom fails to invite the Cholera, and to render it ineurable when it takes place. Five-sixths of all who have fallen by the disease in England, it is computed were taken from the ranks of the intemperate and dissolute." Dr. Rhinelander, of the city of New York, who had an opportunity of witnessing the Cholera in Montreal, recommends "entire abstinence from spirituous liquors."-"Temperance," says he, "in every shape, is the great preventive. ”

“ From the above symptoms and results of post mortem examinations, it would seem that the pathology of the cholera morbus may be explained by a want of oxegenation of the blood, which becoming surcharged with carbon is unfit to stimulate the heart to contraction, and hence the congestion upon the internal and vital organs at the expense of the surface and extremities. ”

“ Cholera morbus is most prevalent in warm climates, and especially in malarial districts. It is generally the result of eating indigestible articles of food, such as unripe fruit or uncooked vegetables. ”

“ As I have neither time nor inclination to write a long article, I will briefly state the principal symptoms of the Asiatic Cholera Morbus, the appearances on dissection, and then deduce from them the treatment. An attack is usually preceded by diarrhœa or by uneasiness in the stomach and bowels for some days, or is suddenly announced by vomiting and purging, commencing about three o’clock in the morning, when the temperature is lowest of the twenty-four hours ”

“ On the one hand, as it may be caught by one person from another, it seems quite right to keep a strict watch over all ships coming from those places where the Cholera is known to be prevailing, because the inconvenience of delaying the ships for a little while is nothing in comparison of the mischief of letting in so bad a disorder. ”

“ The cholera morbus was a frequent disease among both adults and children in the city, and the dysentery in several of the adjoining counties of the state.
A number of emigrant families arrived this month from Ireland and Wales, who brought with them the ship fever. They were carefully attended, at the lazaretto and the city hospital, in airy rooms, by which means they did not propagate the disease. Contrary to its usual character, it partook of the remissions of the bilious fever, probably from the influence of the season upon it. ”

“ Those who act upon the principle of cholera being a highly contagious disease, may perhaps consider it necessary to recommend, among their precautions, that the medical men and attendants should be enveloped in those hideous dresses used in some countries by those who approach plague patients [7] —fancy, in the case of a sick female, or even of a man of pretty good nerves, the effect of but half the precautions one hears of, as proper to be observed. It is quite a mistake to suppose that the sick have not been sometimes abandoned during the prevalence of epidemics ”

“ James Johnson's "contingent contagion," which, though occurring in some diseases, and extremely feasible in regard to others, will, if he goes over the evidence again, I am sure, be shown not to apply to cholera, which is strictly a disease of places, not persons, and can no more be generated by individuals than ague itself can. ”

“ At a moment when the subject of cholera has become so deeply interesting, the good of the public can surely not be better consulted by the press than when it devotes its columns (even to the exclusion of some political and other questions of importance) to details of plain facts connected with the contagious or non-contagious nature of that malady—a question beyond all others regarding it, of most importance, for upon it must hinge all sanatory or conservative regulations, and a mistake must, in the event of an epidemic breaking out, directly involve thousands in ruin. ”

“ A third great defence against the Cholera is not to be afraid of it. Whether it is in the air, or whether it may be caught from other people, fear in either case makes us especially apt to take it. Every one knows how seldom Doctors take any disorder from the sick persons whom they visit, and the great reason of this is, because they are not afraid: they are used to be in the way of sickness, and therefore it does not so much alarm them. ”

“ He calls it “this new fever so grassant in city and country” and says that in many it assumed “the guise of a morbus cholera, known by the much vomitings or often retchings to vomit; and in others under the livery of the gripes with looseness, or, in some, looseness without gripes.” This choleraic tendency concurring with other usual causes from the late season of fruit-eating etc., had swelled the bills of mortality. The morbus cholera and the gripes were to the new fever “like the circumjoviales that move in the same sphere with (but at some distance from) their master-planet.” ”

“ A drunken invalid having also wounded himself, had an abscess, which doubtless showed the pernicious action of the dead flesh, but the cholera morbus did not attack him. In fine, foreign Savans, such as Moreau de Jonnés and Gravier, who have recognized, in various relations, the contagious nature of the cholera morbus, do not admit its propagation by means of goods and merchandise." (Parl. Papers on Chol. p. 13.) With the above documents the Council transmitted to the College a short description of the process of cleaning hemp in the Russian ports ”

“ Now just fancy epidemic cholera a disease transmissible by "susceptible articles," and what an inexhaustible stock must this large army, with its thousands of followers, have long carried about with them; but, instead of this, they were soon in a condition to take the field. Against the above historical fact men of ingenuity may advance what they please. There is no doubt that, in the above instance, severe cases of cholera occurred during the move, the poison taken into the system on the inauspicious spot, not having produced its effects at once ”

“ In every town and district, from the Ganges to the Wear, the drunkard has been the object of its earliest attack, and its most ruthless visitation." The London Morning Herald observes, that "The same preference for the intemperate and the uncleanly has characterized the Cholera every where. Intemperance is a qualification which it never overlooks. Often has it passed harmlessly over a wide population of temperatc country people, and poured down as an overflowing scourge upon the drunkards of some distant town." ”

“ For my part, I shall for ever reject what may be held as evidence in human affairs, if it be not shewn that an individual attending another labouring under cholera, runs no further risk of being infected than an individual attending an ague patient does of being infected by this latter disease. ”

“ Rieehe informs us, that in China. "the disease selected its victims from among such of the people as live in filth and intemperance." Ramohun Fingee, the famous Indian doctor, says, that "people who did not take spirits or opium do not catch this disorder, even when they are with those who have it." In the army under the command of the Marquis of Hastings, in India, consisting of 18,000 men, more than 9000 died in the first twelve days. And every one knows that soldiers, and especially in warm climates, are notorious for habits of intemperance. ”