The homoeopathic domestic medicine / by Joseph Laurie.

  • Laurie, Joseph, -1865.
Date:
1851
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The homoeopathic domestic medicine / by Joseph Laurie. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    51/908 (page 29)
    case there will be no contraction or rigidity, and hot applications, friction, or rapid motion will palliate or remove it; or (4) it may be the result of spasm, in which case there will generally be contraction and rigidity, and heat or friction will likewise relieve, but motion will be commonly arrested. h h. Itching (without the presence of any eruption), especially if preceded by chill, and accompanied by heat (as associated with fever), usually (1) announces the approach of a critical sweat; or if unattended with fever, commonly denotes an acrid condition of the humours. a. Chill (or the sensation of coldness without actual coldness), is a purely nervous indication of irregularity. It may consist of a spasm of the skin. The conditions which precede, accompany, and .follow it, must indispensably be considered, in order to form a correct judgment of the various important indications which it affords, and which qualify every fever ; as for instance:— (1.) Acute fevers are characterised by the single and unrepeated occurrence of the chill. Intermittent fevers by the more or less frequent repetition of this symptom, according as the repetition of the fever-fits returns. (2.) If the FEVER be of an intermittent character, and the chill be slight, with great predominance of heat, there is reason to anticipate that the disease will run into a dis- tinctly acute character; but if the chill be severe, of long duration, and very predominant, the occurrence of heat being imperfectly developed, the disease exhibits a tendency to become sluggish and of long duration, and to assume a chronic form. (3.) Chill which is very severe, and which precedes the heat, may first be generally designated as identifying either violent, acute, or even inflammatory fever, or, on the other hand, intermittent fever. (4.) Chill which is imperfect, or comparatively feebly developed, and which alternates with heat, (that is, is successively preceding and succeeding it,) usually identifies first,— fever of a nervous character, or of a rheumatic or secondly catarrhal description. (5.) Chill (rigor, coldness attended with shivering,) which occurs during the course of an acute fever, possesses many important significations ; as, for instance :—{a) If there be inflammation of any particular and important organ, especially of the lungs, we may anticipate an issue into suppuration, or the still more urgent result of mortification, which will be further identified by subsidence of pain; or {h) in cases particularly in vi^hich no decided and local inflammation has existed, or in which the general symptoms are favorable, the approach of the crisis is identified, namely, the thorough development of an eruption, or, more frequently, the occurrence of copious perspiration, followed by general abatement of the disease; or (e) when inflammation of one particular organ has existed, and any abrupt arrest has taken place, such as the irregular suppression of dis- charge, &c., we may anticipate a transition to other organs: {d) if no inflammation of any particular organ has existed, and there be evident susceptibiUty of any particular part, or evident tendency to determination of blood to such part, or obstruction to the operation of its functions, we may anticipate inflammation of such part; or (e) if none of these circumstances be so combined as to warrant deductions such as have been sug- gested, the chill may forebode the succession of intermittent fever. Sensations of anxiety : a denomination which is applied to a certain feeling of weight or pressure, with oppression of the breath, of which the seat appears to be the anterior part of the stomach and chest. No pains (or very few) are so distressing as these sensations, in which there almost appeal's to be a struggle for life, although, except in cases of organic disease of the heart or lungs, or of inflammation of some important organ, or of general dropsy, &c., they are not so immediately urgent as they appear. a. They may be the result of an accumulation of blood in the lungs, (congestion,) in which case, if the patient were of a consumptive habit, the symptom would be urgent. b. They may occur as a spasmodic affection of the lungs; or, again, from local derangement of the same organs, such as irregular reception and expulsion of the blood, owing, perhaps, to the obstruction occasioned by enlargements, (as of any important gland,) deposits of matter, &c., in which last case, as distinguishable by the pulse, &c., much importance should be attached to them. c. Such sensations may be the result of merely sympathetic nervous irritation of the lungs, most frequently when the stomach is affected, as by deleterious drugs, tobacco, coffee, excess of fermented liquor, or obstructive and indigestible substances, in which case the affection must not be attributed to the lungs. d. They may be occasioned, as last indirectly stated, by overcharging or overtaxing the powers of digestion, especially if the stomach be weak, a condition easily identified