The works of William Cullen : containing his physiology, nosology, and first lines of the practice of physic; with numerous extracts from his manuscript papers, and from his treatise of the materia medica / Edited by John Thomson.

  • Thomson, John, 1765-1846.
Date:
1827
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The works of William Cullen : containing his physiology, nosology, and first lines of the practice of physic; with numerous extracts from his manuscript papers, and from his treatise of the materia medica / Edited by John Thomson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

    1348/1382
    With this view, I must observe, that the animal economy has a singular power of changing acescent aliments, in such a man- ner as to render them much more disposed to putrefaction : and although in a living state they hardly ever proceed to an ac- tually putrid state, yet in man, whose aliment is of a mixed kind, it is pretty certain, that if he were to live entirely upon animal food, without a frequent supply of vegetable aliment, his fluids would advance further towards putrefaction than is con- sistent with health. This advance towards putrefaction seems to consist in the production and evolution of a saline matter which did not appear in the vegetable aliment, and could not be produced or evolved in it, but by carrying on its fermenta- tion to a putrefactive state. That this saline state is constantly in some measure produced and evolved by the animal process, appears from this, that certain excretions of saline matter are constantly made from the human body, and are therefore pre- sumed necessary to its health. From all this, it may readily be understood, how the contin- ual use of animal food, especially when already in a putrescent state, without a mixture of vegetable, may have the effect of carrying the animal process too far, and particularly of produc- ing and evolving a larger proportion of saline matter. That such a preternatural quality of saline matter does exist in the blood of scorbutic persons, appears from the state of the fluids above mentioned. It will be a confirmation of all this to ob- serve, that every interruption of perspiration, that is, the reten- tion of saline matter, contributes to the production of scurvy ; and this interruption is especially owing to the application of cold, or to whatever else weakens the force of the circulation, such as the neglect or want of exercise, fatigue, and despond- ency of the mind. It deserves indeed to be remarked here, that one of the first effects of the scurvy once induced, is very soon to occasion a great debility of the system, which occasions of course a more rapid progress of the disease. How the state of the fluids may induce such a debility is not well understood ; but that it docs depend upon such a state of the fluids, is ren- dered sufficiently presumable, from what has been said above with regard to both the causes and the cure of scurvy. MDCCCXIII. It is possible that this debility may have a