The motive power of the human system : with the duodynamic symptoms and treatment of chronic diseases / by H.H. Sherwood ; revised by H.H. Sherwood's successor, William Larned.

  • Sherwood, H. H. (Henry Hall)
Date:
1850
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The motive power of the human system : with the duodynamic symptoms and treatment of chronic diseases / by H.H. Sherwood ; revised by H.H. Sherwood's successor, William Larned. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

    45/212
    SYMPTOMS. In order to determine whether a person is affected with tubercular di- sease of the organs, we press with a finger or thumb on the vertebral spaces along the spine. If the person has the disease, there will be a place or places along the spine where pressure will produce pain. This pain, however, will be a mere tenderness of the part where pres- sure is made, in the passive state of the disease ; but when the disease is active, this pain, (produced by pressure) will dart into the diseased or- gan with a violence which increases with the intensity of the disease. We know, therefore, that if pressure on any of these spaces produces pain, the person must have the disease, because the secreting glands in the organs connected by their appropriate chain of nerves with these spa- ces must be enlarged and irritable when pain is so produced. In order to determine whether the disease affects any part of the head, we press on the back part and sides of the first joint of the neck, and under the jaws. See Fig. 20. In determining whether one or both lungs are tuberculated, it is ne- cessary to press on the spaces on both sides of the last cervical or large and last joint of the neck and first dorsal, or first joint of the back; and if pressure on the right side produces pain, the right lung is tuberculated ; but if pain is produced by pressure on the left side, the left lung may be tuberculated, or it may be the heart instead of the lung which is tuber- culated, and produces this symptom, or both may have the same disease at the same time. In order to determine which is diseased, we may in- quire whether the patient has a cough and expectorates, and whether he be subject to a hard beating of the heart. If he has cough and expecto- ration, the left lung is tuberculated, but if he has no cough, the heart, on examination, will be found to beat much harder than natural, and the sound of its action will be loud, and precisely like that of the churn, in churning. In tubercula of the stomach, and its immediate appendages, called dys- pepsia, pressure between the 2d, 3d, and 4th, and sometimes 5th and 6th dorsal spaces, (counting from the last or large joint of the neck,) pro- duces pain. In tubercula of the liver, called chronic inflammation of the liver, or liver complaint, pain is produced by pressing on the right side, between the 7th and 8th, and 8th and 9th dorsal spaces, and directly opposite, to the lower part of the right shoulder blade. In tubercula of the spleen, pain is produced by pressure on the left side of the last named, or 7th and 8th, and 8th and 9th dorsal spaces, and op- posite to the lower part of the left shoulder blade.