On spasm, languor, palsy, and other disorders, termed nervous, of the muscular system / by James Arthur Wilson.

Date:
1843
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On spasm, languor, palsy, and other disorders, termed nervous, of the muscular system / by James Arthur Wilson. 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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    the symptoms always attributed to the exclusive agency of a distant nervous influence, or to the mechanical effects of a local nervous pressure. Thus, the painful muscular contractions incidental to the various stages of pregnancy, may often be removed by means directed to the improvement of the general health through the circulation; vpith no reference to the position of the uterus, or of the nervous trunks in its neighbourhood. Moreover, in admitting the paramount importance of the blood, by symptom and remedy, in all disorders of the muscular function, we are careful not to waste its stores, under circumstances that imply a con- tingent necessity for muscular exertion. Were the abdominal muscles more considered in the early stages of pregnancy, fewer women would die in childbed. The fashion prevalent among British accoucheurs, five and twenty years ago, of bleeding, purging, and otherwise lowering the healthy young women under their charge, has probably altered the succession of our line of kings. There are well-authenticated grounds for this conjecture in the medical records of 1817.