Clinical observations on functional nervous disorders.

  • Jones, C. Handfield (Charles Handfield), 1819-1890.
Date:
1864
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Clinical observations on functional nervous disorders. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Leeds Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Leeds Library.

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    doomed to bear ? Even under favourable circumstances, the nervous system must often be hardly taxed: how much more, then, will this be the case when sorrow, toil, and anxiety predominate in the lot assigned ? It is difficult to form a decided opinion on the matter; but there seems, I think, reason to entertain the belief that failure of nervous power is much more characteristic of disease of the present day, than of that which pre- vailed thirty years ago. For this there may be various causes: the greater confinement of large numbers of the population within doors, and often in unhealthy rooms or workshops; the harder struggle to be maintained in the battle of life, the greater amount of the commoda vitcB,—may all tend to increase the susceptibility of the nervous system, and to impair its resisting power. Further, in the two following instances we have, it seems to me, considerable evidence of the altered charac- ter of morbid action, depending, in all probability, on still more general causes than those just mentioned, (i) Sir Ranald Martin informs me, that whereas invalids returning from India used to take leave of their agues when they arrived in this country, this is no longer the case, relapses being of frequent occurrence. Prac- titioners of long experience, also tell us that aguish disorder prevails of late years in places where it was previously unknown, without there being any change in the state of the soil to account for it. (2) There seems no question that puerperal fever is a disease of very different character in different epidemics. As Dr. Ferguson writes, under this test, viz., of therapeutic action, Gooch discovered that puerperal fevers were many, requiring various modes of treatment. I believe this statement cannot be denied; and if not, it seems a legitimate inference that other diseases may vary also