174 Miscellaneous Notices Respecting Cholera. 



Art. XXII. — Miscellaneous Notices respecting Cholera.* 



1. Essay on the Epidemic, usually called Asiatic Cholera, &fc.; by 

 Thomas Spencer, M. D. 



This is a pamphlet of one hundred and thirty pages, giving at 

 large the author's views of the epidemic cholera, as it appeared in the 

 interior of the State of New York. It is in the form of an address to 

 the Medical Society of that State, of which Dr. Spencer is President. 



A principal object of the essay is to prove that the disease, instead 

 of being a Cholera, as it was extensively considered in the East ; or 

 a malignant fever, of which the symptoms affecting the alimentary 

 canal, constitute but one stage, as it has been thought to be by many 

 perhaps most European and American physicians, is essentially a 

 diarrhaa, and should be named, diarrhaa serosa. This opinion is 

 with much ingenuity, sustained, throughout the essay. In accord- 

 ance with this opinion, he considers the discharge from the intestinal 

 canal, of a peculiar fluid, under particular circumstances, as the es- 

 sential and pathonomonic symptom of the disease. This peculiar 

 symptom, he believes to have been co-extensive with the epidemic 

 influence, and in many places, where this influence was weak, or 

 unaided by powerful exciting causes, to have constituted the whole of 

 the disease. The characteristic marks of this diarrhsea, are, the ab- 

 sence of bile from the evacuations, preceded or accompanied by a white 

 slimy tongue ; distress at the pit of the stomach and indigestion ; 

 slight abdominal pain, emaciated expression of countenance, prostra- 

 tion of strength, and indisposition to corporeal and mental exertion. 

 Many other symptoms, which are known to be present, in a large 

 proportions of severe cases, as vomitings, spasms, suppression of urine, 

 coldnesss and peculiar color of the surface, diminished action of the 

 circulating system, he. are considered as secondary and unessential to 

 the character of the disease. 



The following propositions laid down by the author as a summary 

 of the pathology of the second stage of the disease, or that stage 

 which immediately precedes collapse, will give a better view of his 

 notions concerning its nature, than can be derived from any other ex- 

 tract of the same extent. 



* These notices, prepared for the preceding No. by a valued medical friend, were 

 excluded, for want of room, and the same reason now prevents the addition of other 

 similar notices of works since received,— among which, is one by Mr. Daniel Drake, 

 of Cincinnati. — Ed. 



