Observations on the causes and treatment of ulcerous diseases of the leg / by J.C. Spender.

Date:
1835
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Observations on the causes and treatment of ulcerous diseases of the leg / by J.C. Spender. 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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    system, and prevent one occurring in another part. Such a supposition miglit, indeed, be entertained in ordinary ulcers ; so that it is not unreasonable to say, that if the superfluous blood passes off at the leg, it cannot overload the head ; though, even here, no danger can arise from healing the ulcer, as we have already seen, provided any real or presumed superabundance of blood be diverted to some other outlet. But the conclusion above mentioned cannot, I think, be drawn, with equal justice, in reference to the specific sore. The poison has its residence in the system ; but, so far from being likely to exhaust itself by any outlet, the local sore is calculated to increase the evil, and make the morbid influence more inveterate and more powerful. Thus it is that, in lues, small pox, &c., the more extensive are the local efiects on the surface, the more severely does the constitution sufier, and the more does the system appear to become impregnated with the poison. If this be so, even in the true specific sores, we ought rather to try to lessen the number and extent of the ulcerations on the surface, instead of encouraging them, in order to diminish the virulence of the poison itself. But, even supposing it could be proved that the removal of a specific ulcer in the leg would be followed by another in a worse situation, so long as the morbific agency continued to exist ; yet this ought not to furnish