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.

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    ther by the medical treatment, the confinement, or the rest to wliicli she was subjected. This poor lady had the nature of her complaint fully explained to her; could tell what hypertrophy was, and how the little valves at the mouth of the aorta had ossified, and almost shut up the ventricle. She could actually hear the whizzing of the blood as the heart endeavoured to pro- ject it through the contracted chink, and entertained little or no hopes of recovery. After years of suffering had elapsed, her husband’s affairs, fortunately for her, obliged him to remove to a distant climate. She accompanied him of course, but not without much misgiving at being compelled to leave the doctor behind her. Wonderful, however, to relate, before she had been long on her voyage, the valves began to return to their natural state, the increased size of the heart to diminish, and all the disagreeable symptoms which had annoyed her so long to disappear I A thii’d medical gentleman was called to a case of presumed inflammation of bowels. He bled and gave relief; the complaint recurred, and he bled again largely ; again relief M'as obtained, and again there was a recurrence even to a more violent degree than before* Eventually the case ran into a form of chronic nervous disease, from which she did not recover for months. It was one of pure irritation of the spinal cord. Verj' lately a lady came from the country to consult me about a pain in her side and upper part of the chest, sometimes under one clavicle, sometimes under another, and sometimes at the sternum. She suffered so much, that she frequently passed suecessive nights sitting up in the bed, the pains being made worse by the recum- bent position : they were occasionally accompanied by tightness of chest and oppression. When she was first attacked, about six months before, the pains were more general, affecting the extre- mities, and resembling rheumatism ; for which complaint, after some treatment, she was sent to the seaside to take hot baths. After taking some baths, she became much worse, and was seized with violent pain in the chest, cough, and general illness. I'or these symptoms she was bled and blistered, which gave considera- ble relief, but in five or six days the complaint returned almost as severely as before. The physician who had bled her now inform- ed her that her lungs were affected, and that if she did not imme- diately leave the sea-side, she would run into rapid consumption. On returning home, she saw her former medical attendant, who