CAUSE OF EPIDEMIC CHOLERA. 817 



what has been called the rice water discharges ; * 

 and when it percolates the cutaneous capillaries, 

 causing the cold sweat, which marks the latter 

 stages of most diseases. Like the hemorrhage 

 from the gums, nose, ears, and anus, during the 

 latter stages of typhus and other malignant dis- 

 eases, or the vibices of spotted fever, such effusions 

 always indicate a broken down condition of the 

 solids, and a disorganized condition of the fluids. 

 The truth is, that epidemic cholera affords an 



* The rice water discharges were found to consist chiefly of 

 albumen, serum, and salts of the blood, which contained a much 

 larger proportion of red particles, than in health, not because 

 richer in organic matter, but because deprived of its more fluid 

 constituents ; for it was so far disorganized that it refused to coa- 

 gulate, and presented the appearance of a black grumous mass, 

 like semi-fluid tar. On the supposition of Dr. Stevens, that 

 the worst symptoms of cholera were owing to a loss of the saline 

 constituents of the blood; and owing to the extreme coldness of the 

 patient, the plan was adopted at one time by some physicians in 

 England, of injecting into the veins muriate and carbonate of 

 soda, in the proportion of two drachms of the former and two 

 scruples of the latter, to about four pounds of water, at the tem- 

 perature of from 108 to 110. Dr. Pereira informs us, that a 

 medical gentleman injected eight pounds of this solution into the 

 veins of a patient in half an hour, in another case, thirty-one 

 pounds in the course of fifty-three hours, and in another case, 

 forty pounds in twenty hours, that the process was followed at 

 first by a revival of the pulse, (as might be supposed from the 

 warmth imparted by so much water at the temperature above 

 stated,) but soon after by death. Nor is this very surprising, 

 after the experiments of Magendie, who found that the injection 

 of an ounce of carbonate of soda into the veins of a healthy dog, 

 induced langour, coma, fever, convulsions, and death, in from 

 two to three days. 



