The Study of Medicine Volume 5 (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. 1829 Excerpt: ...the predisposing cause, ordinarily brought on by hard labour, intemperance, innutritious food, fevers of various kinds, exhausting discharges, or some morbid enlargement of the visceral or thoracic organs that impedes the circulation of the blood, and produces congestion and distention. The disease is hence common to all ages, though most frequently found in advanced life; the edema of the feet and ankles, with which symptoms it opens, appears at first only in the evening, and yields to the recumbent position of the night. By degrees it becomes more permanent and ascends higher, till not only the thighs and hips, but the body at large is affected, the face and eyelids are surcharged and bloated, and the complexion, instead of the ruddy hue of health, is sallow and waxy. A general inactivity pervades all the organs, and consequently all their respective functions. The pulse is slow, often oppressed, and always inelastic: the bowels are costive, the urine for the most part small in quantity, and consequently of a deeper hue than usual: the respiration is troublesome and wheezy, and accompanied with a cough, that brings up a Gen. I. little dilute mucus, which affords no relief to the sense of Hydrops weight and oppression. The appetite fails, the muscles celluiara. become weak and flaccid, and the general frame emaciated. Exertion of every kind is a fatigue, and the mind, partaking of the hebetude of the body, engages in study with reluctance, and is overpowered with drowsiness and stupor. An unquenchable thirst is a common symptom; and, Progress. when this is the case, the general irritation, connected with it, sometimes excites a perpetual feverishness that adds greatly to the general debility. In some parts, the skin gives way more readily than in others, a...