On the treatment of rheumatic fever in its acute stage, exclusively by free blistering / by Herbert Davies.

  • Davies, Herbert, 1818-1885.
Date:
1864
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the treatment of rheumatic fever in its acute stage, exclusively by free blistering / by Herbert Davies. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    new product, intensely acid in its nature and highly irritating to the synovial and fibrous tissues; and upon the rapid expulsion of this poisonous and irritating agent depended the safety and the cure of the patient, and his immunity, above all, from endo- or peri-carditis. Believing it probable that the virus localized itself for a time in the inflamed joints, and that the intensity of the local inflammations was a measure to some extent of the amount of poison collected by a species of affinity in the parts attacked, I determined to attempt the local elimination of the materies morbi, wherever any external manifestations of its presence existed. I ordered blisters, varying in width, but of considerable size, according to the locality, to be applied around each limb and in close proximity to the parts inflamed; and I hoped to relieve the affected joints, partly on the principle of derivation, but mainly and really by affording through the serous dis- charge from the blistered surface, a ready means of exit for the animal poison. Arm-lets, wrist-lets, thigh-lets and leg-lets, and even finger-lets (if I may be allowed to coin such words) were applied near to, but not upon every joint inflamed, at the very height of the in- flammatory stage when the local pains were the most severe, and the constitutional disturbance the greatest. I will give you an abstract of a few of the cases and the results :— Case 1.—Was a decidedly acute case occurring in an individual of a very delicate and unpromising appearance. Six blisters were applied simultaneously and one subsequently. Great and almost immediate relief to the joints was afforded as soon as the serum commenced to be discharged. The pulse in twenty-four hours fell from 120 to 88 in a minute, and the urine lost its acidity in the same time; I mean in twenty-four hours from the time the blisters were removed. I should mention, that most of the cases were ad- mitted in the afternoon, and that the blisters were applied in the evening, and removed the following morning. This must be borne in mind in reading the tables annexed. In this case every joint was perfectly moveable and free from pain on the eighth day after admis- sion. The appetite began to be restored on the sixth day; light pudding was ordered on the tenth; fish on the fourteenth, and meat diet on the eighteenth day from the time he entered the Hospital.