On functional diseases of the liver, associated with uterine derangement : embracing the consideration of special physiological and pathological relations, hitherto unnoticed / by Butler Lane.

  • Lane, Butler.
Date:
1848
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On functional diseases of the liver, associated with uterine derangement : embracing the consideration of special physiological and pathological relations, hitherto unnoticed / by Butler Lane. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    right liypochondrium and epigastrium, with aching in the back and shoulders. She was affected with constant nausea, and occasional vomiting of dark granular matter. The bowels were costive, the countenance of turbid complexion, and the sclerotics of jaundiced hue. Considerable febrile action of low character was manifest. On inquiry it was found that nearly nine months had elapsed since menstruation had taken place in a normal manner, and of late there had been complete amenorrhcea. The main treatment consisted of free aperients, mercurials, and counter-irritation, and it was effectual in affording relief. Copious dark biUous evacuations were the first indications of amendment. Intestinal ulceration then supervened, indicated by excessive local tenderness, abdominal retraction, and intense pain of cutting, dragging character during cathartic action, so intense indeed as often to occasion syncope. With hot fomentations, slight raercurialisation, opiates, and an occasional dose of castor oil, the cure was finally effected. Nothing can be more common than to find severe biliary derangement occurring at or about the period of menstrual secession; and looking at the great physiological change which then takes place in connection with hepatic develop- ment, it is naturally to be expected. A woman will complain of being bilious, viz., there may be a bitter oily taste in the mouth, a sensation of burning in the throat, frontal headache, nausea, and even vomiting, the urine high coloured, the bile abounding in the alvine dejections, and perhaps causing heat and a stinging sensation in the rectum ; the tongue furred, a biliary tinge pervading the cutaneous surface, &c. &c. Such symptoms, or a modification thereof, often mark the great and important vicissitude which takes place in the female economy at the influential epoch in question, and the due appreciation of the symptoms made manifest, their ascription to the real source, and their judicious treatment, medicinal and dietetic, are of the highest consequence to the future welfare of the patient. I suspect tliat a great majority of those distressing maladies to which the uterus and its appendages become liable in life, might be traced in their origin to neglect and maltreatment at the critical period.