212 PASSAGE OF DISEASE GERMS. 



under any circumstances increase so rapidly as has 

 been supposed to be possible. 



But is not cholera characterized by an almost 

 complete cessation of the eliminative process ? Is it 

 not a fact that the organs which ought to be active in 

 eliminating morbid materials are almost passive ? So 

 far from taking upon themselves increased duties, 

 they do not even discharge their ordinary work. 

 There is, as is well known, complete suppression of 

 urine for a time, and, although there are often pro- 

 fuse perspiration and free discharge of fluid from 

 the intestinal surface, it seems more probable that 

 this increased pouring out of fluid is a physical pro- 

 cess, than that it results from an effort upon the 

 part of any cells connected with these surfaces to 

 eliminate matters, noxious or otherwise, from the 

 blood. 



So far from the detachment of epithelium in cholera 

 being evidence of an effort of nature to eliminate 

 poison from the blood, it is more probable that it 

 results from a destructive process altogether, and is 

 due to morbid changes which have taken place in the 

 blood in the subjacent capillaries (p. 185). The villus 

 is destroyed and incapable of absorbing or eliminating, 

 and there is reason to think that before the epithe- 

 lium is detached the circulation, but very imperfectly 

 carried on for a long time previously, entirely ceases. 

 Nothing, therefore, could be brought to the villus 

 for elimination, supposing it were able to eliminate. 



