On the use of rest and massage in cardiac affections / by T. Lauder Brunton.

  • Brunton, Thomas Lauder, Sir, 1844-1916.
Date:
[1893]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the use of rest and massage in cardiac affections / by T. Lauder Brunton. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    generally shares in their well-being—the appetite increases, and the spirits become brighter. But when we put our patients to bed and insist upon absolute rest, as we do in the cases I have just been describing, we put a stop to this natural removal of waste, and we must supply its place by some other means. The appetite declines, nutrition becomes impaired, and. so there is a general objection, and by no means an unfounded one, which patients often raise when told to go to bed, for they say—“ Oh, Doctor, it is so weakening to go to bed!” Now, the place of exercise is to a great extent supplied by massage. The masseur or masseuse removes the waste products from the muscles and at the same time quickens the How of blood through them by kneading them so as to squeeze the lymph into the interspaces between the layers of the fascia. He then presses the lymph into the general circulation by slow regular strokes upwards along the course of the lymphatics. In talking of massage I cannot help thinking of Walter Besant’s story of the half-starved young man who sold his appetite to an old epicure. The old epicure ate the big dinner with great enjoyment, and the young man got the feeling of great distension. The old man drank the wine and the young man got the headache. In the case of massage tiie masseur takes the exercise and the patient gets the benefit. We all know how fond people are.of recommending exer- cise to their patients or friends, and the great disadvantage in many cases is that the patient is practically too weak to take the exercise. Either his muscles and nerves are too weak or his heart is too weak, and the utility of massage is that the patient gets the advantages of the exercise without overdoing either his muscles, his nervous system, or his heart. In cases of cardiac disease massage allows the treatment to be carried out more easily than it would otherwise be, for it removes the feeling of weariness and irritability, fidgetiness and unrest, which the patients get. It helps to clear away the oedema from the limbs. It helps to empty both the lymphatics and the veins, and by thus driving the blood out of the venous into the arterial system it greatly assists the action of cardiac tonics To sum up, by the use of massage, combined with absolute rest, milk diet, and cardiac tonics, we often are able to restore patients suffering from cardiac disease who at first sight appear only to have a few days to live. HARRISON AND SONS, PAINTERS IN ORDINARY TO HIS MAJESTY, ST. MARTIN’S LANE, W 0.