On local asphyxia and symmetrical gangrene of the extremities / by Maurice Raynaud ; translated by Thomas Barlow.

  • Raynaud, Maurice R., 1834-1881.
Date:
1888
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On local asphyxia and symmetrical gangrene of the extremities / by Maurice Raynaud ; translated by Thomas Barlow. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    may serve as types for tlie description. Some deviate from tlie type more or less ; the morbid results are produced somewbat irregularly, or to an unequal depth, on tlie two sides. But the tendency of gangrené to localise itsell at tire same time to tlie right and left halves of tbe body is not tlie less pronounced, and would suffice, I tliink, to justify tbe title of symmetrical gan^renOj wbicb I ^iYe as a simple statement ol fact, and as having tbe advantage of not prejudging the nature of the malady. I corne now to the exposition of the symptoms, premising that there is no general description wliich can replace the reading ot the recorded observations. Sywptoins. In order to introduce order into the symptomatology and to avoid confounding together conditions very different, in their gravity, I shall describe first syncope and local asphyxia, and afterwards symmetrical gangrené of the extrernities. In its simplest form, local syncope is a condition perfectly compatible with health. Persons who are attacked with it, and ivho are ordinarily females, see under the least stimulus, sometimes without appréciable cause, oue or many fingers become pale and cold ail at once ; in many cases it is the same finger which is always first attacked; tho others become dead successively and in the same order. It is the phenomenon kuown under the name of the “dead finger.” The attack is indolent, the duration varies from a few minutes to many hours, The determining cause is often the impression of cold ; but that ^Yhich is only commonly produced under the influence of the most severe cold, appears in the subjects of whom I speak on the occasion of the least lowering of température ; sometimes even a simple mental émotion is enough. It would appear that the same cause which acts upou the capillaries of the face, and brings the red colour to the face, may in other circumstances act speci- ally on the capillaries of the extrernities ; the skin of the aft'ected parts assumes a dead white or sometimes a yellow colour ; it appears completely exsanguiue. The cutaneous sensibility becomes blunted, then aunihilated; the fiugers become like foreign bodies to the subject. They can be pinched and pricked with impunity ; they may entirely lose the sense of contact and