A clinical text-book of medical diagnosis for physicians and students : based on the most recent methods of examination / Authorized translation from the 2d improved and enl. German ed., with additions by Francis H. Stuart.

  • Vierordt, Oswald, 1856-1906.
Date:
1891
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A clinical text-book of medical diagnosis for physicians and students : based on the most recent methods of examination / Authorized translation from the 2d improved and enl. German ed., with additions by Francis H. Stuart. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University Libraries/Information Services, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University.

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    In some of these cases there is at the same time an increase of heat of the body, which is overcome by the perspiration, cooling being caused by its evaporation. Perspiration is a regulator of the temperature of the body. The loss of water by evaporation (the greater part of the insensible perspiration) in health is, cceteris paribus, greater at night than during the day. It seems to alternate with the secretion of the urine. In healthy people the secretion of perspiration is in this way very changeable. But it is still more so in cases of illness. It may be increased to such a degree that the whole bed may be wet through (hyperidrosis). On the other hand, it may be so diminished (hyphi- drosis) that the skin is perfectly dry (anidrosis). Hyperidrosis of the whole body is called hyperidrosis universalis; if confined to a part of the body, hyperidrosis localis. The latter may be unilateral (hemi- drosis). A general perspiration may take place in cases of illness: 1. When there are present conditions which are analogous to those which produce it in persons in a state of health, as in cases of strong tetanic convulsions by the increased muscular work and heart-action. On the contrary, in cases of epileptic, hysterical, and other convul- sions we have either no perspiration or at least none corresponding with the very great muscular exertion; in all possible diseased con- ditions connected with great excitement, especially fear, or with severe pain; and again, sometimes (not always, see below under Anidrosis) from a high degree of atmospheric heat, warm baths, moist warm pack, or sudorifics (pilocarpine, etc.). Morphine, also, with some persons, induces perspiration, 2. In difficult hreatJiing—dyspnoea. This is generally connected with sweating. (In the same way sweating sometimes occurs with heart disease, accompanied by an engorged condition of the greater circulation ; also with all diseases of the respiratory organs and their surroundings, which interfere with respiration.) 3. In febrile diseases. Sweating usually occurs with the fall of the temperature in these diseases. The most important instances are (a) the critical sweat of a rapid definitive decline of the fever, espe- cially frequent in pneumonia and relapsing fever; (6) the sweat which regularly accompanies the fall of temperature in intermittent fever and pyaemia (diseases which manifest themselves by rapid rise