Gout : its cause, nature, and treatment with directions for the regulation of the diet / by John Parkin.

  • Parkin, John, 1801-1886.
Date:
1877
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Gout : its cause, nature, and treatment with directions for the regulation of the diet / by John Parkin. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    47/176 (page 39)
    THE PHYSIOLOGY OP GOUT.* Commencing with that which, if not the most common, is considered to be the most regular form of the complaint, and which is characterized by external inflammation, with more or less fever, we shall find, that the first symptoms, which the patient experiences, are, in general, lassitude, prostration of strength, and restlessness,— especially in bed,—with disappearance of the accustomed moisture from the soles of the feet; and, lastly, chills and rigors. These symptoms, which usually usher in the acute, inflammatory, * Although usually called Pathology, the terra is evidently a misnomer. Pathology, strictly speaking, means the morbid state of the body, or pai-ts of the body, discovered after death. But, with the exception of external diseases, and some few internal ones, —as the lungs, by the use of the stethescope, and with this we are frequently deceived—there are no means of ascertaining what the actual state of the internal organs is during life, and in a state of disease. We can only judge of that from the symptoms, or the external morbid phenomena presented to our senses. Hence, another teim would seem to be required. As the word Physiology is employed to elucidate the healthy functions of the human body, so the same term would seem to be the most appropriate in the elucidation of the aberrations of the same functions.