The Bath waters : their uses and effects in the cure and relief of various chronic diseases / by James Tunstall, M.D.

  • Tunstall, James, -1880.
Date:
1850
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The Bath waters : their uses and effects in the cure and relief of various chronic diseases / by James Tunstall, M.D. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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

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    quently, is gradual in its approach, several days elapsing before complete loss of power occurs, so that it is necessary to be very .careful in our diag- nosis before we adopt any active measures. Upon our judgment alone the safety of the patient rests, and before we proceed to abstract blood it is neces- sary to enquire into the circumstances preceding the attack. The practitioner is sent for in a hurry to a pa- tient in an apoplectic fit. It is right that he should understand that opposite causes produce similar effects,—that debility and excitement in persons predisposed to apoplexy will both produce hemi- plegia. Of this, during my residence in the Bath Hospital, I had abundant proof. I was frequently called to visit patients attacked with secondary apoplexy, which term I use to express an attack occurring subsequently to the accession of hemi- plegia : in some I was required to bleed freely, and to apply strong antiphlogistic measures ; in others it was necessary to employ stimulants and sinapisms; yet hi both insensibihty was perfect, and the only indication for the guidance of treatment was the state of the pulse and breathing. Hysteria will frequently simulate hemiplegia, in which case we have nothing to guide us but the previous history of the patient; and here the con- verging of the pupils of the eyes towards the nose will afford a good diagnostic mark as to the nature of the fit. Chorea in young women not unfrequently pro- duces partial hemiplegia. Of this I have seen two