The classification and treatment of diseases commonly known as rheumatism / by Frank E. Peckham.

  • Peckham, Frank E.
Date:
1910
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The classification and treatment of diseases commonly known as rheumatism / by Frank E. Peckham. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University Libraries/Information Services, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University.

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    products which result in this condition without causing any temperature. Such joints, if manipulated under ether appear perfectly freely movable without any ap- parent grating and roughening. In other words they feel like perfectly normal joints. This resistance in the earliest stages would seem to be located in the liga- ments. Such manipulations however are to be avoided as the result is to produce a marked stiffening and pain on voluntary motion. This aggravated condition may last for weeks and months before getting back to the former state, thus causing the patient just so much un- necessary pain and discomfort. That this trouble is due to absorption or faulty assimilation is brought out by the fact that a case that has gone along for months and even years in this way with a slowly increasing fibrosis, may begin to have the first mild attacks of swollen joints especially in the fingers. As time goes on and this phase of the disease appears, these at- tacks may gradually become more severe and a tem- perature exists in proportion to the amount of inflam- mation. In such a case, the patient must be carefully questioned. The method of eating is highly import- ant. In the first place not too much must be placed in the mouth at any one time. This gives a chance to chew and mix it thoroughly with saliva. It will be found that most people put the food into the mouth in rather too large quantities, chew a little and then either swallow it by pushing it down, by taking a drink