Essays on hypochondriasis, and other nervous affections / by John Reid.

  • Reid, John, 1776-1822.
Date:
1823
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Essays on hypochondriasis, and other nervous affections / by John Reid. 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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    connexion that subsists between the diaphragmatic and brachial nerves.—p. 47. Dr. Blackall* makes the following observation, Is it not probable that the appearances here and in other cases on dissection, shew only the effects of the disease, and that the attack was at first no organic or inflamma- tory affection of the vessels near the heart, but partook of the nature of spasm ? We know that spasm exists at times in all the muscles which carry on the vital and involuntary functions.—p. 361. M. Desportes,t in an essay pubUshed in 1813, ad- vances an opinion, that angina pectoris has its seat in the pneumo-gastric nerve. LaennecJ assigns to the complaint a seat in the nerves, but is of opinion that the particular nerves in which it is seated may vary. When, says he, there exist at the same time painful sensations both in the heart and lungs, it is right to consider the pneumo- gastric nerve as the principal seat of the affection; when, on the contrary, there is merely a sense of oppression at the heart, without any pain in the lungs, or difficulty in respiration, one would rather suppose the seat of the complaint to be in the filaments which the heart receives from the great sympathetic. Other nerves are some- times affected at the same time, either from sympathy, or from their anastomosis with those which are the chief seat of the affection. The nerves derived from the brachial plexus, and particularly the cubital nerve, are almost always affected; frequently also the anterior thoracic branches which arise from the superficial cer- * Observations on the Nature and Cure of Dropsies, &c. by J. Blackall, M. D. Exeter, 1813. t De I'Angine de Poitrine. Paris, 1813. I Traite de I'Auscultation Mediate, &c. Second Edition.