A treatise on hysteria.

  • Lee, Robert, 1793-1877.
Date:
1871
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A treatise on hysteria. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University.

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    the head, and attended with a copious discharge of green matter by vomit. And this contraction of all the spirits into a kind of point differs little from a collection of the rays of the sun by a burning glass, for as these burn by their united force, so those for the same reason cause a pain by tearing the membranes with united violence. The chief curative indication in this disease, according to Sydenham, is that which directs strengthening of the blood, which is the source and origin of the spirits. Bleeding, purging, opiates, foetid medicines, chalybeates, Venice treacle, bitters, bark, milk diet, were some of the means which he employed to strengthen the blood, and subdue the irregular actions and motions of the animal spirits. But the best thing I have hitherto found for strengthening and clearing the spirits, is riding on horseback some hours almost every day. Sydenham published no cases of hysteria in women, and the two following are the only cases he published which he considered genuine exam- ples of hysteria in the male sex :— Three years since a nobleman sent for me, who seemed to be afflicted with a hypochondriac colic, differing little from an iliac passion, at- tended with pain and immoderate vomitings, which he had long laboured under, so that he was in a manner worn out. During the whole course of the disease, whenever he was worse I observed that he always voided a clear colourless