Elements of medicine : a compendious view of pathology and therapeutics, or the history and treatment of diseases / by Samuel Henry Dickson.

  • Dickson, Samuel Henry, 1798-1872.
Date:
1855
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Elements of medicine : a compendious view of pathology and therapeutics, or the history and treatment of diseases / by Samuel Henry Dickson. 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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    are hypothetically assumed to affect exclusively separate tissues; and the idea is often suggested of their being contrasted both in mode and form. We cannot avoid, in pursuing our systematic course of inquiry into the history of disease—we cannot, I say, avoid entering within this labyrinth; let us hope that we shall not be utterly lost in its intrica- cies. Iekitation, of which we shall first treat, is often spoken of as excitement or stimulation, the words being used promiscuously. We meet with the phrases normal and abnormal irritation, normal and abnormal excitement, used in such manner as to imply no differ- ence between the natural and morbid, except in mere degree. Inflam- mation is also spoken of as excitement or stimulation, and hence it fol- lows from the use of this common and interchangeable language that the careless thinker is irresistibly impressed with the idea of identity of nature and character in the several conditions referred to. As the first step in our researches, let us endeavor to ascertain what irritation is not, and simplify our task by distinguishing it in its essential characteristics from all accidental or incidental compli- cations. 1st. Irritation does not consist in stimulation, hyperexcitation, or increased vascular action. As this is the prevailing doctrine of the day, it may require a closer examination. It would be well if those who maintained the affirmative of this question would instruct us in the exact meaning which they are desirous to attach to the words ex- citement and stimulation. While some hold irritation to be identi- cal with inflammation, and consider the expressions stimulation and excitement synonymous with both, others draw a line between the two first, regarding irritation, however, as a necessary antecedent, or indeed an essential element of inflammation. It is easy to prove the error of the first of these notions. The eye may be irritated intolerably by the admission of a strong glare of light upon it; the ear by a harsh discord or loud sound, as of a drum or gong too near; the teeth set on edge by the grating of a saw or file. Inflammation is not present in any of these cases, nor in the tickling which urges irresistibly into convulsive laughter; nor in the cough produced by the admission of an atom of dust or water into the rima glottidis. But irritation is in so many instances an antecedent of in- flammation, that their necessary connection was matter of ready and plausible inference. We shall however find them, upon a careful analysis, to be fairly separable. Irritation, as t]ie very term seems to imply, and as we shall endeavor to show, marks its presence by prompt and obvious phenomena, and cannot exist without making itself felt and seen. The results of inflammation often exhibit themselves, on the other hand, unexpectedly, and are developed insidiously. Tu- bercles occasionally enlarge, maturate and break down without any notable disturbance referable locally. Thus, also, in certain cases of rachitis and marasmus, and of ramollissement of the brain and spinal marrow with fatuity and paralysis, we have the alleged results of in-