Page:A treatise on Asiatic cholera.djvu/17



is a disease which is generated at all seasons of the year, among human beings inhabiting certain parts of India; it is capable of being disseminated over the world through the instrumentality of the fomes of those who have suffered from the disease, though it may be only in a mild form, usually described as cholerine. Cholera has a predilection for persons whose general health has been impaired from defective hygienic circumstances, from disease, want of proper food, or any similar cause; in the same way depression of the nervous force, by inducing an abnormal condition of the intestinal secretions, whether permanent or temporary, renders an individual peculiarly liable to an attack of cholera.

The seizure is characterised by nausea, faintness, and a feeling of oppression in the prgecordial region, griping pains in the abdomen, frequent watery purging (the stools being alkaline when passed, and in appearance resembling rice-water), constant vomiting, sup-