The diagnostics and treatment of tropical diseasesStitt, E. R. (Edward Rhodes)
Science
The diagnostics and treatment of tropical diseases
Stitt, E. R. (Edward Rhodes)
Tropical medicine
Greig has found infection of the bile of the gall bladder or ducts
in 80 cases in 271 cholera autopsies. When living organisms are
injected into the ear vein of a rabbit they pass into the bile.
An examination of the epithelial layers of the gall-bladder of
such a rabbit shows destruction of the cells and the presence of
vibrios in the underlying tissues. While cholera spirilla are soon
crowded out by intestinal bacteria, thus explaining the short
period during which cholera spirilla are excreted by convalescents,
this is not true when the cholera vibrio gets into the bile ducts
or gall bladder. Greig found one cholera convalescent excreting
cholera vibrios forty-four days after the attack. Of 27 persons who
had been in contact with cholera patients 6 were excreting cholera
vibrios although apparently well.
A very important matter is that persons who fail to show
cholera vibrios may begin to excrete such organisms after the
administration of a purgative or following some intestinal
disorder. In fact purgatives may set up an attack of cholera in a
cholera carrier.
The spread of cholera is intimately connected with the great
religious festivals and pilgrimages of Oriental people. Not only
do those of India keep up the dissemination of the disease there
but pilgrims going from the delta of the Ganges to Mecca carry the
infection and transmit it to their fellow pilgrims from Egypt and
Algiers. Greig examined a number of cholera convalescents who were
about to return to their homes in India and found 30 per cent of
these pilgrims excreting cholera vibrios in their stools.
In India cholera accounts for about 1 to 1.5 deaths per 1000 of
population. Malaria and plague are other great causes of death.
The intimate commercial relations between Europe and Egypt and
Algiers make the introduction of the disease into European ports an
easy matter. Of particular importance is the fact that so many sick
people make pilgrimages, these being peculiarly liable to act as
carriers.
Excesses in eating, often of badly prepared or decomposing food,
following periods of religious fasts, predispose the natives of
India to cholera.
Lowered resistance, as from disease or from gastric disorder,
increases the susceptibility to cholera. Errors in diet and in
particular the effects of alcoholic excesses markedly predispose to
infection.
PATHOLOGY
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