Neuralgia and kindred diseases of the nervous system : their nature, causes, and treatment : also, a series of cases, preceded by an analytical exposition of them, exemplifying the principles and practice of neuro-dynamic medicine / by John Chapman.

  • Chapman, John, 1821-1894.
Date:
1873
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Neuralgia and kindred diseases of the nervous system : their nature, causes, and treatment : also, a series of cases, preceded by an analytical exposition of them, exemplifying the principles and practice of neuro-dynamic medicine / by John Chapman. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.

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    How stout you've become ! I should not have known you. How wonderfully better you are looking ! And her husband, when he came to fetch her home, remarked, I don't remem- ber her at any time to have had so good an appetite as she has now. He also said, Certainly, I don't think she has had so much flesh on her as she has at present for five or six years past. Moreover, after their return home he wrote me a thoroughly satisfactory report of her. But soon, after she was settled at home she began to suffer again severely, though she was still able to say, My nights are very good. She returned to London in August, and again came under my personal care. She did not progress so rapidly on this as on the former occasion ; but she improved greatly : she gene- rally slept well, she recovered much of the good condition she had when she left London iu May, and in December she passed many days either entirely free, or almost entirely free, from pain. The menses continued to recur, and at nearly normal intervals.; on the last two occasions of which I have notes they recurred on the 29th of October, and again on the 19th of November, so that tliree weeks elapsed between the periods of their recurrence. On the last occasion they continued five clays, and were especially copious and of thoroughly healthy colour. It was decided that she should again return home ; but before the date fixed for her return arrived, she had a sudden relapse : her pleasing and healthy expression of countenance changed, her face appeared dark and congested, and her suff'erings became very severe again. Indeed, the change was so rapid and so great that I could not help thinking it must have originated in some mental trouble. She went home at the time appointed, and I regret to say that when I heard from her last she was still suffering (to what extent I do not know), notv/ithstanding that the menstrual function has been thoroughly re-established. Comment.—This case presents some remarkable and peculiarly instructive features. Although the menses had been wholly sup- pressed during eleven years, the patient suffered rarely, if ever, from headache; although both her jaws were full of decaying teeth--most of them mere stumps, some of which had abscesses at their roots—she never suffered from tooth-ache ; and although she had long suffered excruciating pains in the back, together with suppression of the menses, she had not been troubled at all during the five or six years before she consulted me by leucor- rhoea. Seeing the state of her teeth, I thought it probable that, though she felt no pain then, they produced a great amount of irritation of the nervous system, and thus favoured the continu- ance, if they did not cause, her neuralgia ; accordingly, I advised their extraction when she came under my care the second time.