Haemophilia : read before the New Orleans Medical and Surgical Association, May 2d, 1884 / by J.H. Bemiss.

  • Bemiss, J. H. (John Harrison), 1856-1897.
Date:
1884
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Haemophilia : read before the New Orleans Medical and Surgical Association, May 2d, 1884 / by J.H. Bemiss. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    hemorrhage. A woman in child-birth is in great danger of o o Hooding, and during her menses, and particularly at the cli- macteric, is almost sure to have trouble. Among other symptoms a very common one is the appearance of large spots of subcutaneous extravasation. Those who have attacks of hematemis or hemorrhage from the lungs, frequently have premonition of the same in a sensation of weight, oppression, or even pain in the local- ity from which the loss is about to occur, but this is by no means general, on the contrary the opposite is the rule. An important symptom, and one which is conspicuous bv its absence in the cases which I have read, is rheumatic af- fection of the joints, they are not of the nature of acute in- flammatory rheumatism, but more on the order of chronic infiltrations or eftusions. The little girl spoken of in the first histoiy was a sufferer on two occasions from rheuma- tism, one attack being especially severe, and that it was of the acute inflammatory form is shown by the fact that her heart became affected. The prognosis is uncertain. In infancy it is bad, es- pecially when the umbilicus is the seat of hemorrhage. In those children who gradually improve as they approach puberty the outlook for entire cure is good. But haemo- philia appearing in old age is especially prone to last and to hasten, if not actually to cause death. Suggestions as to treatmeut are especially meagre, and this largely because the pathology is so little understood. All use ergot, and the various vegetable and mineral as- ti ingents. Some use iron (Fc„.C1,.) in order that they may build up the blood and thereby improve nutrition. Others still trust largely to the so-called neurotics under the belief in the nervous origin of haemophilia.