CHAPTER V. ON CHOLERA
CHOLERA is a retrograde movement of the
materiel in the
whole body on the stomach, the belly, and the intestines; a
most acute illness. Those matters, then, which collect in the
stomach, rush upwards by vomiting; but those humours in the
belly, and intestines, by the passages downwards. With regard
to appearance, then, those things which are first discharged
by vomiting, are watery; but those by the anus, liquid and
fetid excrement, (for continued indigestion is the cause of
this disease); but if these are washed out, the discharges are
pituitous, and then bilious. At first, indeed, they are borne
easily, and without pain; but afterwards the stomach is
affected with retchings, and the belly with tormina.
But, if the disease become worse, the tormina get greater;
there is fainting, prostration of strength in the limbs, anxiety,
loss of appetite; or, if they take anything, with much rumbling
and nausea, there is discharged by vomiting bile intensely
yellow, and the downward discharges are of like kind;
spasm, contractions of the muscles in the legs and arms; the
fingers are bent; vertigo, hiccup, livid nails, frigidity, extremities
cold, and altogether they are affected with rigors.
But if the disease tend to death, the patient falls into a
sweat; black bile, upwards and downwards; urine retained
in the bladder by the spasm; but, in fact, sometimes neither is
there any urine collected in the bladder, owing to the metastasis
of the fluids to the intestine; loss of utterance;
pulse very small, and very frequent in the cases affected with
syncope; continual and unavailing strainings to vomit; the
bowels troubled with tenesmus, dry, and without juices; a
painful and most piteous death from spasm, suffocation, and
empty vomiting.
The season of summer, then, engenders this affection; next
autumn; spring, less frequently; winter, least of all. With
regard to the ages, then, those of young persons and adults;
old age least of all; children more frequently than these, but
their complaints are not of a deadly nature.
