Medical adviser : a full and plain treatise on the theory and practice of medicine suited to planters and families / by Rezin Thompson.

  • Thompson, Rezin.
Date:
1860
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Medical adviser : a full and plain treatise on the theory and practice of medicine suited to planters and families / by Rezin Thompson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Woodruff Health Sciences Center Library at Emory University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Woodruff Health Sciences Center Library, Emory University.

    43/1142
    every change of position, causes suffering; and even when the body is kept motionless, this compression and tension of the neuramilla are sufficient to cause that indescribable sensation, known as a sense of ill-being. But, say you, there is no controversy here : all agree that this stage of fever is one of debility, but we deny that the subsequent one, that of reaction, is. Well, I will now proceed to examine it, and see if I can- not trace the marks of debility through it also. I have already alluded several times to the manner in which the reaction—the hot stage of fever—is brought about; viz., that the blood, by meeting with difficulty in its passage through the capillaries, accumulates in the heart and arteries, and stimulates them to increased contraction: now if the capillaries did not remain debilitated and inactive, and thus continue to offer resistance to the momentum of the circulation, what prevents the heart from relieving itself from the stimulus of the accumulated blood ? What pre- vents an immediate return of all the parts to a natural, quiet condition ? In mild cases, this desirable result often does take place, in consequence of a reaction of the capil- laries from their innate vigor, coinciding with the general reaction, or by the assistance of a timely exhibition of some of the domestic remedies, which the common sense of man- kind, or rather of womankind, has led them to adopt, such as a warm ginger-stew, aided by the stimulus of a hot foot- bath, etc. But suppose these timely remedies be neglected or prove inadequate : the symptoms go on increasing in inveteracy; the throbbing carotids drive the blood into the vessels of the brain with tremendous force, but the capillaries are torpid, congested, and do not transmit it freely; every available space is therefore crowded to the full, and the medullary substance [brain matter] so compressed that it cannot perforin its functions well; the numerous nerves in its investing membrane are compressed, until they give out the sensation of pain, more or less intense; association between the faculties of the mind is lost, and the patient has wild vagaries and talks incoherently: a little more