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

  • Griffin, William.
Date:
1845
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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 Daniel Griffin. 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.

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    and if this be polypharmacy, as the reviewer designates it in contempt, the term and the reflection applies more forcibly to the present state of medical science generally, than to any which has been advanced on the subject of spinal irritation. In freely admitting the frequent inefficacy of local treatment alone in cases of protracted spinal irritation,* the experienced reader will at once perceive I only assent to a fact, true of almost all chronic diseases, and especially true of functional affections, or to speak more clearly, of chronic disorder of the nerves of organs. Hoav often have I not seen tormenting dyspepsia, or chincough, after resisting all direct remedial measures, banished, as if by a charm, on mere change of air. How wonderful have been the recoveries I have seen it effect even in mesenteric dis- ease, and in affections of the lungs under similar circumstances; and is the influence that so remarkably alters the functions of organs, and so strangely affects the structural changes going on in them, to be set aside in the cure of disorders of the great trunks from which they are supplied with nerves ? Or if, on the other hand, it cannot be set aside, must we conclude that the trunk is not the seat of disease, nor any other organ or part of the human frame that we know of ? In addition to anything I have already offered in favour of the doctrine of spinal irritation, it seems to me to be no slight evidence of its truth, that it has explained to us the dependence of certain symptoms not understood before ; and furnished us with new and more correct means of forming our diagnosis in many diseases. In some affecting the chest or abdomen, for instance, in which pain or tenderness on pressure is a principal symptom it is of importance to know whether this pain or tenderness be superficial or deep- seated—be in the spinal nerves distributed to these parts, or in the * It seems to be altogether overlooked by the reviewer, that spinal irritation is very generally, if not always a symptomatic disease. In highly nervous tempera- ments, and where there is a strong hereditary disposition, it may occur as an idio- pathic affection, Jbut it more usually arises from disorders of the digestive or uterine functions, or from chronic structural disease. When arising from the latter cause, which is not probably removable, the spinal irritation is necessarily incurable, however limited in extent it may be. Of this nature are the neuralgic complaints in phthisis, diseases of the heart, abdominal tumours, caries of the vertebrae, &c.