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THE BEGINNINGS OF LIFE. 





the natural working of the animal economy is disturbed; the 

 person is ill. The transformation is not arrested until the 

 whole of that ingredient in the blood which is susceptible of 

 the decomposition has undergone the metamorphosis \' 

 The specific poison (contagium) does not, however, seem to 

 be immediately reproduced in the blood of the person 

 affected : rather, a set of changes are set up in the blood 

 which ultimately lead to the evolution of such a poison in 

 some part or parts of the body; so that, as Mr. Simon 

 says^, ' Bowels, skin, kidney, tonsils, are the favourite resorts 

 of the several fever-poisons just as they are the surfaces by 

 which naturally the organic waste of the several tissues is 



eliminated ^' 



There are many organic poisons which undoubtedly pro- 

 duce spreading changes in the blood. Writing from Australia, 



Prof. Halford says 



In fatal cases of snake-poisoning, 



V exposed tc 



•. its con 



;n- with 



S effects of sn. 



'#tic diseases. 



'a more rapid 

 which rag< 

 Many were 



■jspot, and thi: 

 than the c 

 reached ] 



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1 



:}iij 



Holds ! 

 That, s' 



Thenal 



action of 



'I minutes elaps 



whether in this colony, India, America, or Africa, it may be **i was extinct'; 

 Stated as a rule, with few exceptions, that the blood loses its jiolera-poison in 



jAestremelv cc 



^ Ch. Robin says, in his ' Vegetanx Parasites/ 1853, p. 3/6: — 'On a 

 confonclu iin phenomene grossier et physique, de transport de vegetal 

 d'un sol sur un autre, plus ou moins favorable, avec la question de con- 

 tagion. Celle-ci est au contraire caracterisee par une modification 

 moleculaire lente des substances organiques se propageant de proche en 

 proche, sous I'influence du contact d autres substances organiques pre- 

 sentant deja elles-memes une modification analogue S'il y a quelque 

 chose de contagieux dans cette transplantation, c'est la putrefaction des 

 substances azotees qu'on transporte, et elles determinent dans les mucus 

 sains un alteration analogue k celle qu'elles ont eprouvee. Mais il n'y a 

 rien la qui appartienne en propre au vegetal et doive lui etre attribue/ 

 See also pp. 307-309. 



^ Lectures on Pathology. , . ' . v ' 



^ A similar view has been advocated on more than one occasion by 

 Ur. B. W. Richardson. " He says (^Medical Times and Gazette,* 

 November 5th, 1870, p. 5^^9) : — ' A person suffering from a communicable 

 disease is poisonous precisely as a cobra di capello is poisonous — that is 

 to say, he is producing by secretion an organic poison, which, if it comes 

 into contact in the right way with a healthy person, will reproduce 

 disease.* See also the ' Transactions of the Epidemiological Society/ 

 vol. i. ' 



* On the Treatment of Snake-bite. . 1870. - ■ -' 





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