Medical diagnosis : a manual of clinical methods / by J. Graham Brown.

Date:
1883
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Medical diagnosis : a manual of clinical methods / by J. Graham Brown. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    obvious traces of such surgical affections as fractures, &c., it is always of importance to note a.ny indications of previous disease which may meet us in the course of our examination. The pitting of smallpox, the cicatrices over scrofulous glands, the large joints of those who in their childhood have been subject to rickets, old-standing pai’aljsis, are among these indications. The most important are noted in the following paragraph :— Cachexia expresses a chronic condition of ill-health, the result of disease, such as is produced by cancer, syphilis, tuberculosis, <kc. It differs from mere anaemia, inasmuch as the characteristic appearance of the patient is due not to mere quantitative or qualitative deficiency of blood, but to degenera- tion of the blood, or to admixture of the products of disease with it. The most prominent varieties of cachexia are the following:— Cancerous Cachexia.—There is great emaciation and loss of strength, accompanied with a peculiar dirty, waxy, yellowish, or browmish-green colour of the skin. Splenic Cachexia, that of Adenia or Hodgkin’s disease, shows itself by the presence of emaciation, pallor, and weakness, accompanying or succeeding the enlargement of the lymphatic glands throughout the body, along vTith dropsy and haemorr- hages. Scorbutic Cachexia. — Lassitude, oppression, palpitation, cyanosis, and haemorrhage from the gums accompany scurvy; the eyes are sunken and surrounded with dark rings, and the skin earthy in colour. Syphilitic Cachexia.—Acquired syphilis in its later stages is often accompanied with emaciation, weakness, and anaemia; but this is not by any means always the case. Inherited syphilis shows itself in adult life by the following signs. The forehead is prominent, the bridge of the nose sunken (owing to disease of the nasal bones), the cornea is often marked with opacities, the result of inflammation, the iris is sometimes