The change of life in health and disease : a practical treatise on the nervous and other affections incidental to women at the decline of life / by Edward John Tilt.

  • Tilt, Edward John, 1815-1893.
Date:
1871
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The change of life in health and disease : a practical treatise on the nervous and other affections incidental to women at the decline of life / by Edward John Tilt. 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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    of life, like those of puberty, are principally to be ascribed to the nervous system being unable to tolerate the stimulus im- parted to it by the reproductive organs, for when the nervous S}Tstein is well-tempered, this stimulus acts as an improver instead of a disturber of health. Vital acts, however, are never found cut and squared with mathematical precision ; there are, therefore, exceptions to this rule, and I have had patients who suffered much at cessation, whose previous good health had been uninterrupted. These remarks are a fit intro- duction to what I have to say respecting the theory of the pro- duction of diseases at the change of life; for of what use is a long enumeration of medical facts unless it lead to a sound theory, explaining their production and preventing their oc- currence ? Stones only cumber the ground till the architect puts them in place. Blood Theory.—The more abundant quantity of blood, or its defective qualities, will account for congestions of organs, for hemorrhages, and for other flows, and for thirty-two 3^ears the womb is a powerful centre of attraction, causing it once a month to be the focus of blood-currents from all parts of the body. A strong mental or pathological perturbation some- times so divides the blood-currents, that while a portion is directed to the womb, the rest is sent into some weak organ, which becomes congested, if unable to throw the blood off from its surface. The same occurs during the change of life. Part of the blood is still every month directed towards the womb, which is thereby congested, while disease may be induced by the monthly current setting in towards a weak organ. After three or four ounces of blood have been retained for a few months, plethora may be induced, if the nutritive force is unable to use the blood to strengthen the interior framework, or to produce fat. Plethora once induced, the system is op- pressed and rebels ; and if constitutional strength be equal to the task, it throws off the blood, but if strength be below par, the blood stagnates in congested tissues. Nerve Theory It is, however, unreasonable to attribute to plethora most of the cerebro-spinal and ganglionic affections of the change of life. Thus formerly, when women suffered from headache, giddiness, drowsiness, and dulness of intellect, they