Practical observations on diseases of the heart, lungs, stomach, liver, &c., occasioned by spinal irritation, and on the nervous system in general, as a source of organic disease : illustrated by cases / by John Marshall.

  • Marshall, John, 1818-1891.
Date:
1835
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Practical observations on diseases of the heart, lungs, stomach, liver, &c., occasioned by spinal irritation, and on the nervous system in general, as a source of organic disease : illustrated by cases / by John Marshall. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

    53/186 (page 41)
    a constant state of purgation, with calomel, julap, and castor oil, daily repeated. On being introduced to the bed-room of the youth, I could scarcely have believed that the spectre before me was the once blooming, vigorous boy I recollected. He lay in bed emaciated in the extreme; his eyes glistening and restless, moving constantly, with an uneasy and timo- rous rapidity, as if he was unable to fix them for any length of time on the same object. The pulse was sharp, and remarkably quick—140; the tongue moist—apex florid, but yellow towards the root. The respiration was hurried. The heat of skin rather more than natural. The voice strikingly weak. The expression of the countenance most deplorably anxious. On raising him upon his breech in bed, with a view to examine the chest and spine, I found that the slightest motion increased the rapidity of action of the heart to a most extraordinary degree ; and that, as I have before mentioned in Case First, it seemed to beat in every part of the thorax at the same moment. I found the chest remarkably well formed; and could not, by the most careful manipulation and percussion, detect the slightest local cause of irritation there. On turning to the spine, I was disappointed to find much less irritation, or tenderness to the touch, than I had anticipated. Allow- ing for the extreme debility of the patient, the column was perfectly straight; but the shoulders were pulled up in that peculiar manner which we observe in the latter stages of phthisis. Drawing the hand down the column gave little or no pain, but caused a thrilling sensation to pass through and over the thorax; this particularly occurred when the hand was passed rapidly down the cervical and dorsal portion of the spine; and at the same time the velocity of the heart's motion was increased far beyond counting; and the patient panted like one who