Medical and physiological problems, being chiefly researches for correct principles of treatment in disputed points of medical practice / by William Griffin and by Daniel Griffin.

Date:
1845
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Medical and physiological problems, being chiefly researches for correct principles of treatment in disputed points of medical practice / by William Griffin and by Daniel Griffin. 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.

    68/266 (page 62)
    If we consider for a moment the amount of our absolute know- lege of the nature of most diseases, we shall, I fear, find that it is much less than we imagine. What, for instance, is the nature of rheumatism ? Whence arises its pain ? Is it, as the reviewer asks of the pain in spinal irritation, from neuralgia, congestion, or inflammation? If it be from the latter, why is it not alwaj's got under by the remedies applicable to inflammation ? and if it be neglected, why does it not run into suppuration ? It will of course be answered, it is a specific inflammation—an inflammation sui generis. And what does and sui generis Simply, that we know nothing at all about the matter; but that we see by t he progress and effects of remedies and results, that rheumatic is very different from common inflammation; and this is what is called understanding the nature of a disease ! The fact seems to be, that a knowledge of the proximate cause, or even of the patho- logical condition of the affected part, however desirable, is not commonly necessary to efficient or successful treatment. We may have a very intimate knowledge of the seat, character, and habits of a disease, and of the influence of remedies, without under- standing any thing of its nature or pathology. But tlie reviewer asserts, that tlie texture or part in which this irritation resides is unknown, and here we are at issue. “ When we examine its seat,” he says, “we find pain vehemently excited by the slightest touch, which leads inevitably to the conclusion tliat it (the spinal marrow may or may not be consentaneously affected) is external to the vartcijral canal. It may be in the ligamentous structure; in the nerves after their exit from the osseous cylinder ; or even in the common integument.” It seems surprising the reviewer should not perceive, that every word I have here quoted may be perfectly true, and yet leave the belief undisturbed, that the irritation or affection so named resides in the spinal cord. No one denies that the pain may be in the ligamen- tous structure; or nerves, after their exit; or common integument. It is only asserted, that such pain is connected with and dependent on a morbid condition of the adjoining portion of the cord, as it may be that pain in the knee, in disease of the hip joint, is depend- ent on irritation, or some disturbed condition of the crural nerve in the groin, whatever tissure or structure about the knee that pain may seem to exist in. Again it is asserted, the hig Illy sensitive state of the system in