The principles of medicine as applied to dynamical therapeutics / by Herbert T. Webster ; designed as an introduction to the study of eclectic medicine.

  • Webster, Herbert Tracy, 1836-
Date:
1891
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The principles of medicine as applied to dynamical therapeutics / by Herbert T. Webster ; designed as an introduction to the study of eclectic medicine. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.

    52/180 (page 46)
    NjL^yO- ' of tissue ensues, as evidenced by emaciation, debility, and, perhaps, impairment of the mental forces. Suppose on the other hand there be a failure in the im- pelling power of the circulation,—failure upon the part of the heart or blood-vessels to perform well; the stream moves but slowly, and the capillaries are filled with blood but partially supplied with oxygen, for the pulmonary cir- culation receives but a compensating impulse. Oxidation of tissue, the removal of carbon dioxide, the distribution of pabulum, the transportation of waste material, go on imperfectly, the vital organs and the nervous centers,—all parts are imperfectly stimulated, the blood becomes loaded with waste products and the entire body suffers. The normal rate of the circulation cannot be disturbed long before the quality of the blood deteriorates; this would result if lack of nourishment and increased breaking down of tissue, which must follow from disturbed circula- tory function, were the only causes, but a more important one, in many acute diseases, as fever and inflammation, is the generation of septicelements,—p Ptomaines (?) which fijrZ tend to seriously threaten the continuation of existence, -— through rapid development, and depressing influence upon the nervous centers. Blood depravation becomes mani- fest in numerous ways, but the tongue is an important in- dex here, not only to denote the advent of the septic ele- ment, but also to suggest the appropriate remedy for its correction. A febrile or inflammatory state does not continue many days before the tongue manifests the tendency to such changes, and when an indication of this kind becomes prominent, it should not be neglected. In treatment, it is well to recollect that the means which will control disturb- ance of the general circulation, applied early, may avert all danger of septic changes, by allowing the excretory organs to rid the blood of the disturbing and zymotic