On rheumatism, rheumatic gout, and sciatica : their pathology, symptoms, and treatment / by Henry William Fuller.

  • Fuller, Henry William, 1820-1873.
Date:
1854
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On rheumatism, rheumatic gout, and sciatica : their pathology, symptoms, and treatment / by Henry William Fuller. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    history of its rarer modifications, are calculated to point to some excretion of the skin as the immediate cause of rheu- matic inflammation. One other point, in connection with this subject, is well deserving of attention,—I mean the specific nature of the poison which constitutes the essence of rheumatism. If the matter, which excites rheumatic inflammation and produces the other symptoms of the disease, be in all cases the same, or, in other words, of a peculiar and specific character, it follows that nothing can give rise to rheumatism, properly so called, Unless it have the power, either directly or indirectly, of producing this poison in the system. No point in the whole course of medical inquiry is more fully established, than that different poisons have separate modes of action, and produce each its own peculiar effect.1 What weight, for instance, would be attached to the testimony of a man, who stated that he had known the poison of glanders give rise to hydrophobia, or that of measles to smallpox ? Yet in what disorder are the general phenomena more striking, and the local effects more singular and remarkable, than in acute rheumatism ? A peculiar and specific character is so clearly stamped on this disease, that no one will attempt to question it; few on due consideration will deny its dependence on a poisonous matter in the system ; all, therefore, ought to agree as to the specific nature of that poison. But, in de- fiance of those very laws, the due appreciation of which alone makes any study a science, rheumatism has been re- ferred to a dozen different causes, and inferentially at least to as many different poisons. It has been attributed to checked or deficient perspiration, to exposure to cold or to malarious exhalations, to indigestion and imperfect assimilation, to de- fective or perverted uterine action, to the ill-performance of the renal functions, to plethora, and to debility ; to one cause or to another, as the history of the case or the appearance of 1 The relative bearing of cau-e and effect is the grand physical principle which alone makes medicine worthy of our study, for if it be supposed that agents capable of acting in the human body have not each their definite mode of action, we can neither determine the seat and course of any given disorder, nor judge of the operation of remedies; whereas, if the definite action of causes be allowed, we are enabled to determine within certain limits, the course, symptoms, and pathological phenomena which result from the action of any known agent. (Dr. Williams's Introduction to a 'Treatise on Morbid Poisons.')