A practical treatise on the diseases peculiar to women, illustrated by cases / [Samuel Ashwell].

  • Ashwell, Samuel, 1798-1857
Date:
1845
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A practical treatise on the diseases peculiar to women, illustrated by cases / [Samuel Ashwell]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    36/766 (page 16)
    it may be allowed that the state of the digestive organs exer- cises a more extensive and peculiar power in them, than in our own Sex. Complication of chlorosis with functional affection of the cerebrum.—There is scarcely any complication more difficult to relieve than this. The varieties, as to situation, and the differing degrees of intensity of the pain, are worthy of observation. In some individuals, the uneasiness of the head is general, but not severe; while in others, the site of the pain is limited, and so agonizingly intense, as scarcely to be endured. In not a few instances, the pain is periodical, and of neuralgic severity, while in others, it is so nearly constant, as to preclude mental or physical exertion, and almost to induce the belief that it must be connected with organic affection. Nor is it very uncommon to meet with fits of hysteria, chorea, and epilepsy, attributed by the patients themselves, and perhaps correctly, to the long-continued and painful affections of the head. These diversified degrees of suffering will, of course, be associated with a variety of morbid cerebral sensations: in some, there will be vertigo; in others, an overwhelming sense of weight. At one time, there will be paralytic sensation about the head and upper extremities ; at another, a painful quickness of sensibility ; and with many of these feelings, there will be morbid sympathy, of the stomach especially, as well as of the digestive organs and alimentary canal. Let it only be remem- bered, how these morbid actions will become blended, how irre- gularly and extensively they will affect the entire system, and it will not be difficult to conceive of the tedium and misery which these patients endure. It is consolatory to know, that, in by far the majority of individuals thus suffering, the affection of the cerebrum is functional, there is rarely structural disease ; and if pressed for proof of this opinion, we may point to the numerous instances of recovery, even when the symptoms seemed clearly to indicate organic affection. It is nearly impossible, within reasonable space, to describe the distressing and intricate morbid results attendant on this complication. There are, however, as already stated, not only shades of difference in the amount of suffering, but marked extremes; and I know nothing worse than the aggravated