Rheumatism and gout / by F. Le Roy Satterlee.

Date:
1890
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Rheumatism and gout / by F. Le Roy Satterlee. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    to-day recognize the possibility of these affections being sometimes of rheumatic origin, and assert that the symptoms may then be rapidly and effect- ively controlled by anti-rheumatic treatment. Dis- tinct rigor is probably rare, but chilly sensations may be present, and the temperature if taken at this time, may be found at ioi° F. Pain, of charac- teristic and ever increasing severity, is gradually con- centrated about certain of the articulations. The slightest movement of the body, contact of the bed- clothing, the motion imparted to the bed by attend- ants walking in the room, and the performances of the necessary nursing offices, are sources of exquisite suffering. Nothing short of absolute immobility gives any approach to relief. The temperature will now be found to have risen to 103° or 104° F. Ex- amination of the affected areas may reveal nothing, and it is a point of clinical interest that the intensity of the suffering can be so disproportionate to the external evidences of the inflammatory processes. Again, examination of the affected joints may re- veal all the appearances of acute synovitis, tender- ness, swelling, fluctuation from effusion, and oedema, a circumscribed or diffused inflammatory blush being well defined. The larger articulations are more generally at- tacked, notably those of the lower extremities, but the fingers are often implicated, and there is no exemption in favor of any articular site.