On some states which resemble inflammation / by William Brown.

Date:
[1839?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On some states which resemble inflammation / by William Brown. 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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    5. Ileadach arising from a disordered stomacli is well known to every one. Every one has either felt or observed the acute pain which follows repletion from the ordinary viands of a dinner table, or excess in vinous liquors. But no one could suggest blood-letting as the remedy, although the local pain, the quick pulse, the disordered functions of every part of the system would at first seem to call for its employment. Experience shows us that an emetic, a purgative, a stimulant of another kind, some- times mere abstinence from food, restores the healthy state of the stomach, and removes all the unpleasant sensations from the head. Probably there are other cases of pain in the head originating in the same cause,,(disordered digestion,) which we are too apt to view as inflammatory in their nature, and as calling for the de- traction of blood. The pain in hemicrania, fixed as a nail in one spot of the head, and usually intermittent in its character, is such an instance. It is generally a symptom of deranged digestion, and calls for regulated diet, purgatives, and quinine. It does not call for blood-letting, and although it is sometimes relieved by loss of blood, this is no proof of its being the best treatment. Yet cases do occur not unfrequently in which the severity of the pain, and the immediate relief afforded by leeches, draw away the at- tention both of the practitioner and patient from the real seat of disease, the stomach and bowels. The perfect recovery which oc- curs in such cases is to be ascribed more to the native vigour of the system, enabling it to bear with impunity an injury inflicted, or rather to the regulated diet and medicinal remedies which are intended to be used as auxiliaries, but which are in effect the principal agents in the cure. In cases of this kind there is no imminent danger to life, and, of course, the error in treatment is not seriously prejudicial'; but m delirium tremens and in mania, the hazard is much f^reater. In the former affection pain is not a constant symptom, but it^isa fre- ' quent one, and whenever the patient's attention is diverted for a little from his imagmary cause of alarm, uneasy sensations in his head are mvanably referred to. I need not say that, notwithstanding such symptoms, blood-lettmg is not the approved remedy ; and that while there are cases in which it is borne without iniurv in yhich perhaps its employment is demanded, in a large majority of instances, remedies of avery different character are found mostbene- hciai. Narcotic stimulants, counter-irritants, and purgatives are used with the best effects ; whereas blood-letting has not unfre- quently retarded the recovery, or even hurried on a fatal termina- tion. Ihcre is reason to believe that in some cases of suicide committed under the influence of the alarm or depression attendin '