The Elements of Medicine (Volume 1 ); In Two Volumes (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1795. Excerpt: ... fourth and sixth chapter of Part II. asseveral examples; I shall select one: lirst and heat," he observes, (CLIX.) pend upon sthenic diathesis of the exme vessels of the fauces and skin. These sels become so much constricted as to vent the discharge of the perspirable tter. Meanwhile the blood, flowing r the extremities of the exhalant vessels, res under the cuticle, the heat which is srated in the system, and which would carried off, if the perspiration were," He explains sthenic thirst from a-constriction of the vessels, which fediva and mucus; and in the small-pox, ftules are said to be occasioned by a conflriction, -which detains the conmatter under the cuticle. This perconstriction, we are told, is not no distinction, however, is attempted, by referring constriction to excess, sm to defect, of excitement, this reasoning, it may be remarked, excessive excitement of vessels conxcessive oscillations--in the increase, ie suppression, of their healthy functions i tions; and 2. That to account for morbid alteration in the ordinary state of any discharge, we ought to look for an alteration in the action of those vessels, by whose counteracting powers it is regulated in health. The ballance in the perspiration depends on the cutaneous exhalants and absorbents; but the properties of the lymphatic system seem never to have struck the imagination of Brown, though the investigation was carried on with so much ardour during the period of his studies; attention to these anatomical discoveries would have assisted him in the full explanation of many diseases, which, though they pass under the fame denomination, he has most justly classed as of a nature entirely-opposite; the one sthenic, the other asthenic; but to make out this explanation, he must have acknowledged ...