Fat and blood : an essay on the treatment of certain forms of neurasthenia and hysteria / by S. Weir Mitchell.

Date:
1902
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Fat and blood : an essay on the treatment of certain forms of neurasthenia and hysteria / by S. Weir Mitchell. 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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    At the seventh week massage is used on alter- nate days, and is commonly laid aside when the patient gets up and begins to move about. In 1877, several of the members of the staff of the Infirmary for Nervous Disease, and es- pecially my colleague, Dr. Wharton Sinkler, obliged me by studying with care the influ- ence of massage on temperature, and some very interesting results were obtained. In general, when a highly hysterical person is rubbed, the legs are apt to grow cold under the stimula- tion, and if this continues to be complained of it is no very good omen of the ultimate suc- cess of the treatment. But usually in a few days a change takes place, and the limbs all grow warm when kneaded, as happens in most people from the beginning of the treatment.1 The extremely low temperature of the limbs of children suffering with so-called essential paralysis is well known. I have frequently ceen these strangely cold parts rise, under an hour’s massage, six to ten degrees F. In such small limbs, the long contact of a warm hand may account for at least a part of this notable 1 See also page 91.