A practical treatise on the diseases peculiar to women : illustrated by cases, derived from hospital and private practice / by Samuel Ashwell.

  • Ashwell, Samuel, 1798-1857.
Date:
1848
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A practical treatise on the diseases peculiar to women : illustrated by cases, derived from hospital and private practice / by Samuel Ashwell. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University.

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    firmatory of the extraordinary curative effects attendant on the deve- lopment or restoration of the sexual function. The vascular system, especially the capillaries and the heart, is fre- quently implicated in protracted chlorosis; and, by patients and their immediate friends, such complications are viewed with much appre- hension. Constipated bowels and severe headache are common cir- cumstances ; but the entire loss of the natural color of the surface, oedema of the face and extremities, palpitation of the heart and syncope, are less frequent, and wear so formidable an aspect as to excite great alarm. Ascites I have rarely seen connected with the oedema of chlorosis, certainly not in early life; at a more advanced period, derangement and structural change of the liver or kidneys may, combined with chlorosis, induce effusion into the peritoneal sac; but such events are rare. No doubt ascites, in diminished quantity, does occur in the general tendency to serous effusion, which is so marked when chlorosis is protracted; but it is not a formidable symptom in itself, and yields to the remedies which would improve the quality of the blood. When. however, the effusion is in greater amount, distending the abdomen: structural disease of the liver or kidney, as already observed, will be found to exist, when only palliative remedies can be employed. It is right also to caution the attendant and the family against supposing that every hue of the surface, slightly more icterode than usual, is to be regarded as an indication that the liver is seriously deranged, requiring for its restoration mercurial remedies. Complication of Chlorosis with Structural Change of the Lung.—This malady rarely terminates fatally, except in combination with phthisis: and the question is not unimportant, whether the phthisis be induced by it and amenorrhcea; or whether these latter affections do not owe their origin, at least in part, to the original phthisical tendency of the system. This predisposition may be dormant till the epoch of puberty: and then its injurious influence may pervade the entire system. One of the immediate results will be a want of energy—an imperfect deve- lopment of the sexual character; and this failure of puberty will lead to chlorosis and amenorrhcea. These latter affections will be the prominent, but not the real disease. Yet it is not astonishing that the chlorosis should principally arrest medical attention; it is the malady peculiar to the age: there are only few and slightly-marked indications of phthisis; and. these, and even much worse symptoms, would be viewed as within the scope of the curative influence of menstruation. Occasionally, phthisis may be induced by chlorosis and amenorrhoea ; but, in by far the greater number of instances, the chlorosis only excites into activity the previously latent teudency to this fatal disease; an opinion which receives confirmation from the fact of the other complications rarely passing into this form. There may have been extensive vicarious hemorrhage, excessive and long-continued leucorrhoeal secretion, intense pain of the head, hysterical and even epileptic seizures, a highly morbid condition of the digestive organs, and a moderate degree of emaciation; and yet there may be no phthisis. The individual recovers from these morbid states without