The diseases of the rectum / by Richard Quain.

  • Quain, Richard, 1800-1887.
Date:
1854
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The diseases of the rectum / by Richard Quain. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    bleeding—no more than a slight trace during the evacuation of the bowels. When questioned, the patient complained of heat and throbbing pain at the end of the bowel, as well as of the feeling of a foreign body there. The sitting posture was stated to be distressing ; and he threw himself back on his chair to prevent pressure on the tumour. Such was the history of the local complaint; but this was not the whole of the malady. The tongue was some- what furred; it was also larger—broader and thicker—than natural; and, in consequence of this, was tooth-marked upon its sides. The alvine evacuations were few and scanty; and there was little or no appetite for food. Concurrently with this condition of the alimentary canal, and probably consequent upon it, there was heat of skin with rest- lessness and a general feeling of discomfort. The condition thus sketched out, is what was called by the patient, an attack of piles, and it is usually so named; but, in fact, the state of the rectum in such a case is but part of a more general ailment. The whole intestinal canal is affected. That there is congestion of the canal, we have evidence in the state of the tongue, as well as in the condition of the blood-vessels of the rectum ; and to this direct evidence afforded by the parts which are in view must be added, the inference respecting the state of the stomach, and other parts of the intestine, as well as of the liver, to be drawn from the loss of appetite for food, and the deficient and depraved