Quotation from: Manual of Surgery

Written by: Alexander Miles and Alexis Thomson

#Collapse# is a clinical condition which comes on more insidiously than
shock, and which does not attain its maximum degree of severity for
several hours. It is met with in the course of severe illnesses,
especially such as are associated with the loss of large quantities of
fluid from the body--for example, by severe diarrhoea, notably in Asiatic
cholera; by persistent vomiting; or by profuse sweating, as in some
cases of heat-stroke. Severe degrees of collapse follow sudden and
profuse loss of blood.