On rheumatism, rheumatic gout, and sciatica : their pathology, symptoms, and treatment / by Henry William Fuller.

  • Fuller, Henry William, 1820-1873.
Date:
1860
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On rheumatism, rheumatic gout, and sciatica : their pathology, symptoms, and treatment / by Henry William Fuller. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by UCL Library Services. The original may be consulted at UCL (University College London)

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    patient will bear to lose a large quantity without fainting. But neither of these facts is sufficient to justify the adoption of the remedy, or to warrant its repetition. The tolerance of bloodletting is attributable, without doubt, to the irritant property of the rheumatic poison, and to the stimulating influence which the blood acquires in consequence; and the quantity of fibrin in the blood is so increased,1 that the cupping and buffing will continue to the last,—will continue ings should be avoided in rheumatic fever. (Dr. Todd, on 'Rheu- matism,' p. 208.) Although I am in the almost daily habit of treating this disease, I rarely prescribe phlebotomy. (Dr. Watson's 'Lectures,' ed. 1, vol. ii, p. 625.) 1 Messrs. Andral and Gavarret have clearly shown, that the increase in the proportion of fibrin which rises in acute rheumatism, from 2? or 3 to 8 or 9, or even 10 3 parts in 1000, is due to the existence of local inflammation, and that bleeding exercises very little influence over it, unless it be accompanied by a remission of the local mischief. It exerts, however, a very manifest and constant influence over the quantity of blood corpuscles, which diminish in proportion to the frequency of the bloodletting, and the amount of blood taken. In illustration of these facts, I subjoin the result of four bleedings in three cases of acute rheumatism. Bleeding i. Bleeding ii. Bleeding iii. Bleeding iv ' Case i. 65 62 70 6-9 Fibrin ! „ ii- 54 70 61 5-4* I „ iii. 61 7-2 7-8 102 ' Case i. 114-8 1110 102-8 88-7 Globules .< , „ 1253 1249 1214 99-6 I » iii- 1231 1207 112-8 1010 * In Case ii, the pain and inflammation were subsiding at the time of the fourth bleeding. (' Annals de Chimie,' vol. lxxv, pp. 240—48.)