General observations on the elimination, catalysis and counter-action of poisons : with especial reference to oxaluria and ague / by J.A. Easton.

  • Easton, J. A. (John Alexander), 1807-1865.
Date:
[1858?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: General observations on the elimination, catalysis and counter-action of poisons : with especial reference to oxaluria and ague / by J.A. Easton. 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.

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    between the deposit in question and any particular patliological condition, I may, perhaps, be alknved to make a few remarks on what appears to be, so tar as my experience goes, a tolerably constant and very interesting coincidence. In the first place, looking at neuralgia from a general standpoint—ascertaining the previous habits, manner of life, and present condition of those who are the subjects of it—listening, it may be, to the tale of hereditary transmission, or hearing of the number of victims in the sanie family circle—noticing the dyspepsia, the occasional hypochondriasis, the unhealthy appearance of the skin, the irrita- bility of temper, the periodicity of the pain, and the variations ])roduced in it by diflerent states of the weather—grouping, 1 say, all these circumstances together, and drawing from them a general inference, we are warranted, I think, in regarding the neuralgic condition as one of the manifestations of the gouty diathesis. The words gouty diathesis I use advisedly, and in express and avowed contra-distinction to what is botli popularly and professionally known as a fit of the gout. This diathesis, I suspect, is of more frequent occurrence than is generally supposed ; and the opinion of Sir Benjamin Brodie cannot be too strongly impressed on our minds, that many persons labouring under what are esteemed local diseases are, in reality, suffering from the influence of gouty poison in the system, though they may have nothing which would commonly pass for gout. The quaint remark of Captain Grant, quoted by Dr. James Begbie, that there dies not one of a thou- sand of the gout, although more die gDUty, is, I believe, in strict accordance with accurate observation, and has been subscribed to, in as many words, by Dr. Gairdner, one of our best writers on gout, who repudiates the notion that we should not consider a man as gouty unless he has suffered under a regular fit of the disease ; and states, moreover, his belief, that the gouty diathesis is often very perfectly developed in individuals who never see —he does not say who never feel— its local manifestations, expressing, at the same time, his conviction, that the strumous is not more frequent than the gouty habit. My belief, then, is strong, that neuralgia is a manifestation of the same poison which is popularly, though erroneously, supposed to develop itself exclu- sively in the great toe of the aristocratic, the luxurious, and the sensual. The opinion, in the second place, that neuralgia is a manifesta- tion of the gouty diathesis, gains strength from the observation of the particular tissue in which the pain appears to be situated. The notion, I believe, is very generally entertained, that in neu- ralgia, the irritating influence, whatever it may be, is exerted not directly on the nerve itself, but on its neurilemma or fibrous investment. Now, while I am aware that the gout poison, or at all events that which is looked upon as its material exponent, may take up its residence—or to express it more in itccordancc