36
THE ASIATIC EPIDEMIC OF 1817-21.
while at the Cape, and no more cases occurred. Dr. Corbjn had only one opportunity of making a post- mortem examination. He says : — " I found the stomach distended with air, as well as the intestines, but could discover no obstruction, oi" even faeces; the coronary arteries of the stomach were consider- ably distended with congested blood. The stomach, lateral convolutions of the ilium, and the liver had suffered inflammation."* The patient having been taken ill at 6 p.m., died within thirty-six hom^s.
Mr. Scott, in 1824, observes that this outbreak of disease on board the " Mangles " could not have been cholera, the oedema and swelling of the feet being symptoms unknown in this affection; and we cannot overlook the fact that the only detailed account which Dr. Corbyn has left us is contained in a small work, published by him in 1818, upon the epidemic which prevailed in the Governor- General's camp in 1817.. Dr. Corbyn says this outburst of disease " approxi- mated in its features more to the disease of cholera morbus than to any other in the nosology." He then proceeds to point out the difference between cholera and the epidemic which he witnessed in the Marquis of Hastings' camp. It seems to me very clear, there- fore, that if Dr. Corbyn's ideas were in this state of confusion as to the nature of cholera in 1818, it is not unlikely he may have been rnistaken as to the out- break of disease which he witnessed o?i board the " Mangles " four years previously.
Surgeon J. Boyle gives us the following history of
- The Russian medical officers at Orenburgh, in 1829, make almost
precisely the same remai-ks regarding the appearances of the intestine ; they describe the inflamed state of the parts after death.—' Die Asiatische Cholera in Russland.' Berlin, 1831.
