Surgical observations on the constitutional origin and treatment of local diseases, and on aneurisms : including directions for the treatment of disorders of the digestive organs / by John Abernethy.

Abernethy, John, 1764-1831.

Date:: 1827

Credit: Surgical observations on the constitutional origin and treatment of local diseases, and on aneurisms : including directions for the treatment of disorders of the digestive organs / by John Abernethy. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Leeds Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Leeds Library.

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$ease of the brain. In such cases, the correc- tion of the disordered functions of the di- gestive organs cannot be accomplished ; and even if it were practicable, it would not cure the nervous disease. It is however highly necessary and advantageous to attend to the disorder of the digestive organs, where it is only a symptom of nervous disease. The relief of the former will often mitigate, though it cannot cure the latter. * The * The ingenious Mr. John Bell has of late published an opinion that all nervous disorders depend on the cir- culation of blood in the brain. The opinion is founded on this dogma; the brain being insensible, there can be no such thing as nervous irritation. Believing similar opinions - to be prevalent in the profession, I think it virorth enquiring, whether, if the motion of a worm in the stomach produces temporary blindness or convul- sions, there be not some nervous irritation ? If a man has his leg amputated on account of a compound frac- ture, and afterwards becomes delirious and dies ; I grant that fulness of the vessels of the head will be found on dissection; but was not the vascular action caused by- preceding nervous irritation? The same fulness of vessels and signs of inflammation are found in those who die of fevers ; but do not the miasmata which cause them affect the brain, and suddenly impair and disturb its energy,$