A treatise on indigestion and its consequenses, called nervous and bilious complaints : with observations on the organic diseases in which they sometimes terminate / by A.P.W. Philip.

  • Philip, Alexander Philip Wilson, 1770-1847.
Date:
1833
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A treatise on indigestion and its consequenses, called nervous and bilious complaints : with observations on the organic diseases in which they sometimes terminate / by A.P.W. Philip. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    to the causes of irritation become tender on pressure; and as every^ affection of these or^'ans is felt throughout the systemj as soon as this happens more or less tightness of pulse is per- ceivedj and consecjuently more or less general inflammatory disposition prevails; this state of the disease constituting what I have termed its second stage. From this view of the subject it would have been easy to foretel, that indigestion, in its first stage, being a state of mere nervous irritation of the digestive organs, producing by sym- pathy only a similar state of other organs, would not be found essentially to influence the progress of other diseases, with which it might happen to be complicated; but that, as soon as the continuance of this state bad excited an inflammatory disposition in the digestive organs, and consequently through- out the system, its influence on other diseases would be both more considerable, and of a more important tendency; and such, on inquiry, we shall find to be the case. The intelligent reader will perceive, that it could only be in an extensive work devoted to the subject, that the influence of the second stage of indigestion on other diseases could be dis- cussed in the way, which the prevalence of this disease and its influence on others call for. Who cannot see that an irritated and weakened state of the nervous system, a tightened circula- tion, and the general prevalence of an inflammatory tendency, must necessarily more or less influence all diseases ? The ob- ject of the present chapter is to lay before the reader the manner in which they are found to influence a few of the most important; and from what I shall have occasion to say of them, the application of the same principles to other cases will not be difficult. I shall begin with fever. The concurrence of the second stage of indigestion and fever is one of the most common combinations. It arises either from fever attacking those labouring under this stage of indigestion, or from the latter supervening in the course of the fever. I shall here beg leave to quote some part of what is said of the nature of fever in the Preface to the fourth edition of my Treatise on Simple and Eruptive Fevers. The more I have considered the subject, and observed the course of febrile dis- eases, the more it appears to me, that the view there taken of