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Observations on the cholera morbus of India, a letter
Observations on the cholera morbus of India a letter Author:Whitelaw Ainslie Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: C H O L K R A M O II B U S. 11 the Cholera Morbus in its most dangerous type ; such as Aetius AreteEUs, and especially Celsus, who gives us a perfect picture ... more »of it, noticing, amongst other signs, " Pulsus celer, et frequens, animi deliquium, crurum et brachiorum con- tractura." 1 should presume, however, from his practice, that he could not have been very successful in the treatment of it, having trusted much to wine as a remedy (4). Sydenham found it prevailing as an Epidemic in England in 1669; he very minutely details the peculiar symptoms which distinguish it, and from his saying nothing of bile, we may reasonably conclude that, in the cases he saw, it did not form a remarkable feature; a proof that it was the disease in its most severe form. By Mr. W. Scott's admirable report on the Epidemic Cholera, as it appears in the districts subject to the Presidency of Fort St. George, it would seem, from a record of the Medical Board under date 178/, that the (4) See Celsus, lib. iv. chap. 11. Cholera Morbus then existed in the Amboor valley, attended with violent spasms and prostration of strength : there is also noticed, in the same report (page 246), a diso'rder which Mr. Alexander Anderson had occasion to treat at Vellore, in 1794, which leaves no doubt but that it was the Spasmodic Cholera in its most terrific shape; many of those who were attacked not surviving more than three hours, after being first seized. Sonnerat describes it well, such as he found it on the Coromandel Coast in 1780: it came like a pestiferous whirlwind upon a division of Bengal troops under the inedicul charge of Mr. Jameson, at Ganjarn, in 1781; men previously in perfect health dropping down in dozens : from that period up to 1790 Mr. Scott observes, that the disorder was common, as an epidemic, ...« less