The practice of medicine and surgery : applied to the diseases and accidents incident to women / by W.H. Byford and Henry T. Byford.

  • Byford, W. H. (William Heath), 1817-1890.
Date:
1888
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The practice of medicine and surgery : applied to the diseases and accidents incident to women / by W.H. Byford and Henry T. Byford. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    367/852 (page 355)
    and to stimulate the intestines to copious bilious diarrhoea when they are not irritable, but subject to the ordinary stimulation of ingesta. This overflow of bile comes in paroxysms, and produces a sort of cholera morbus. When it occurs only once a month, it is apt to be near the time of menstruation, or it may return several times between the monthly periods. But there is often a persistent absence of secre- tion for a time, or this condition may alternate with the other; or the bile, instead of finding its way into the alimentary canal, may pass into the circulation and give the skin a jaundiced hue. When the functions of the liver are seriously disturbed, there is apt to be at one time a deficiency of bile, and at another a great redundancy. I have not seen this organ congested to any great extent, as observed by Dr. Bennett. But I have seen an enlargement of the spleen in such instances, though I have not supposed it to be the result of the influence of uterine disease. When copious effusions of bile take place somewhat suddenly, all the pain and spasmodic action observed in bilious colic are likely to present themselves. Sympathetic Affections of the Nervous System. Much more distressing if not more serious suffering is experienced in the nervous system than in the digestive apparatus. Aches, pains, and complaints of evident nervous ailments are the peculiar province of uterine disease. There is hardly a disagreeable or even excruciat- ing sensation that these patients do not experience; and too often this real suffering is mistaken by the friends for imaginary, and the patient's complaints are treated with unreasonable impatience and rudeness by persons from whom she ought to receive kindness and sympathy, because her appearance does not correspond with her mor- bid sensations, as we are apt to observe them in other examples of disease. It is remarkable, too, and a fact that often impeaches them with insincerity in their complaints,—when the uninitiated are the judges—that these patients will pass from a state of excruciating Buffering and loud complaints, under a little excitement, to one of actual enjoyment and hilarity, or conversely. The transition from the excitement of private company, or a public party, gives way in a few minutes to a doleful condition of suffering and unappeasable complaints. The inconsistency of the complaints and enjoyments, tli'' incapacities and the performances of these patients, are almost characteristic,—at least in their sudden alternation—and are inex- plicable in any other way than by supposing that the pains in the different organs, to which they are referred, are more dependent upon the general nervous susceptibility than upon the organic disease of even trivial character. They are strictly neuralgic in their nature, and confined to the nerve-matter or tissue of the parts. A great num-