Observations on certain dropsical affections which are successfully treated by blood-letting / by J. Abercrombie.

Date:
[1818]
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Observations on certain dropsical affections which are successfully treated by blood-letting / by J. Abercrombie. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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

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    dequate to the wants of a healthy body. The smallest evacua- tion of blood was contemplated with terror in both these con- ditions ; in the former, by its supposed effect in increasing the tenuity; and, in the latter, by diminishing the quantity of of blood, already too small for the purposes of life. The humfral / pathology has long since given place to a new series of hypothe- tical doctrines, equally satisfactory to their inventors, as that was to the venerable names with which it is associated ; but I am doubtful whether it has not continued, in some degree, to influence our practice, particularly in a dread of blood-letting in dropsical disorders, even when symptoms exist, which, under other circumstances, would be considered as requiring that evacuation. Some of the older writers had observed cases of dropsy, in which blood-letting was both admissible and useful. Paulus ^gineta recommends it in those dropsical affections which arise from suppression of the haemorrhoidal or menstrual discharge. Alexander Trallianus treats of certain cases of anasarca, which he supposed to arise from a superfluity of “ cold blood,” and in which blood-letting is useful, “ by relieving nature of a load and Hildanus relates the case of a young man, who was cured of great and general anasarca, by a haemorrhage from the nose to the amount of four pounds. In modern times, the subject has excited the attention of some German writers, who treat of a modification of dropsy, which they have named hydrops plethoricus. * In this disease, ac- cording to the writers alluded to, much relief has been ex- perienced from copious haemorrhage by the nose, and the most successful treatment has been found to be upon the antiphlogis- tic plan, by repeated small bleedings, and purging with neutral salts. Dr Blackall, also, has thrown considerable light upon this subject; and has successfully combated the opinion of a watery state of the blood, by shewing, that, in many dropsical affections, the blood is huffy, and that albumen is discharged by the urine in great quantity. I by no means intend to maintain, that dropsy is never a dis- ease of debility, but that it is not necessarily so. It very often exists in connection with a feeble, relaxed, and exhausted state of body; but it may also exist in a state of the body directly the reverse of exhaustion, and even in immediate connection with symptoms of an inflammatory nature. This I think will * Grapengiesser de Hydrope plethorico ; Engelhard In Muszum der Hell* kunde, IV. B. p. 95. Mayer Samml. med. Beobachtungen, p. 505.