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

  • Fuller, Henry William, 1820-1873.
Date:
1856
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.

    58/494 (page 32)
    HEREDITARY DISPOSITION OF RHEUMATISM. established early, but the disposition will increase until it issues in a paroxysm of acute rheumatism. In others who are attentive to their general health, and carefully avoid unnecessary exposure, the soil is uncongenial, and the seeds either lie dormant, or fail to attain their per- fect growth, for lack of sufficient nourishment. The same tendency to malassimilation may exist, but so much caution is observed, and such immediate steps are taken on the slightest appearance of functional disturbance, to check or arrest the progress of disease, that no root can be taken before that element, which is essential to the growth of the seed, is eliminated or got rid of from the system. Thus, although a disposition to rheumatism may arise, and may be evinced by the presence of wandering rheumatic pains, yet, with due care, a paroxysm of rheumatic fever may generally be warded off, and the tendency to the disease, for a time at least, got rid of. There is, however, cause for serious apprehension when rheumatic symptoms have once begun to manifest themselves, inasmuch as, however slight and trivial in their character, they are certain evi- dences of a constitutional change, which may eventually terminate in a paroxysm of acute rheumatism ; and the least want of caution, the least exposure, may induce an immediate and violent attack. The hereditary disposition of rheumatism has been often overlooked or disregarded. Its existence, however, to a remarkable degree, does not admit of reasonable doubt. I have known several faraihes who, for two generations, have been grievously tormented with the disease, and in sundry of whose members it has repeatedly appeared in its most acute and terrible form. Circumstances not unfrequently concur to render our efforts to trace its hereditary cha- racter difficult, and often to make them unavailing, yet