Lectures on the morbid anatomy, nature, and treatment, of acute and chronic diseases ... / by John Armstrong ; edited by Joseph Rix.

Date:
1834
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Lectures on the morbid anatomy, nature, and treatment, of acute and chronic diseases ... / by John Armstrong ; edited by Joseph Rix. 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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    Chronic Affections. [Lkct. 1. 3rd. Sometimes, on the contrary, malaria produces a continued or remittent form of fever, which is blended with inflammation; which inflammation is remarkably uniform as to its seat. It is always found in the same structures, namely, the brain, the bron- chial lining, the intestines; together with which there will be a morbid condition of the skin. So that it appears that a taint exists in the blood which affects all individuals in the same manner; and the probability is, that all peculiar agents produce certain peculiar effects on particular parts of the body. II. Chronic affections, which form the second class, are those which arise and proceed slowly and insidiously. They sometimes follow acute or sub-acute affections ; and sometimes precede them, so that acute and sub-acute arise out of chronic affections. Nothing is more common than to find acute or sub-acute inflammatory fever degenerating into a chronic form of inflammation; and, on the other hand, chronic inflammation often goes on for a length of time insidiously, and, at last, creates an attack of acute or sub- acute disorder or disease. Whether chronic affections arise from a common or a peculiar occasion, they are still referrible to certain morbid conditions. All the symptoms in chronic affections, as in acute and sub-acute affections, are referrible generally to one leading condition or fact. These conditions may be conveniently arranged under the following seven heads. 1. Venous Congestion. 2. Simple Excitement. 3. Inflammation. 4. Certain nervous conditions (for want of a better name), with little or no disturbance of the vascular system; as in hysteria or other affections. 5. Certain changes in the quality of the blood. G. Changes in the secretions from the blood; as observed in the formation of calculi, and in the deposition of tubercles and other extraneous growths. 7. Mechanical obstructions; as in certain diseases of the heart and blood-vessels. Sometimes one or other of these states exists separately ; some- times, however, they exist in conjunction ; for chronic affections in their progress often become complicated. In Pathology then, two things seem to require to be considered, namely:—1st. The symptoms or signs; and 2d. The conditions or changes which take place, and which arc connected with the