A system of practical medicine. By American authors. Vol. 2 : $b General diseases (continued) and diseases of the digestive system
Science
A system of practical medicine. By American authors. Vol. 2 : $b General diseases (continued) and diseases of the digestive system
Medicine -- Practice
At the outset of these bleedings the general health of the patient may
appear unimpaired, and if they be few in number and moderate in extent
but slight evidences of debility may be shown throughout the attack;
but it is often the case that the loss of blood is excessive and long
continued, and symptoms of profound anæmia supervene. The {189} patient
becomes greatly exhausted; intense pallor is developed, shortly
followed by general oedema. Attacks of syncope appear, and in fatal
cases--which are not common--death results from asthenia. This result
may occur after a few days from the profuseness of the hemorrhage;
usually, however, only after several weeks. Throughout the attack the
cutaneous lesions continue to develop, either irregularly or in
successive outbreaks, scattered over the general surface, involving the
face less frequently than other parts. These spots undergo the
color-changes peculiar to extravasated blood, and may be seen in all
the stages of involution in the same patient. Fever, usually absent
throughout the attack, may appear at the height of the affection, but
does not run high. Local inflammations are exceedingly rare. In
favorable cases recovery follows the gradual mitigation and
disappearance of the symptoms, but relapses frequently occur, and
convalescence may be retarded for months.
PURPURA RHEUMATICA (PELIOSIS RHEUMATICA).--Schoenlein in 1829 described
as peliosis rheumatica an affection in which the symptoms of purpura
simplex were associated with pain and often with effusion into the
joints, especially those of the knee and ankle. He considered it as an
independent malady. This opinion has been shared by Fuchs, Hebra,
Kaposi, Neumann, and many others. Kaposi[2] regards it as related to
erythema nodosum, with which affection, indeed, it possesses some
features in common. It probably, however, constitutes a complication of
ordinary purpura. That it is not primarily rheumatic is shown by the
almost invariable absence of many of the symptoms characteristic of
rheumatism; that it cannot be an independent affection appears from its
intimate relations with other forms of purpura.
[Footnote 2: _Hautkrankheiten_, 1880, p. 277.]
Purpura rheumatica commonly begins with malaise, anorexia, debility,
sometimes with mild fever. The patient is soon attacked with pains, of
a more or less acute character, in the joints, especially the knees and
ankles. There may be some effusion into the joint and cutaneous oedema.
After a few days the nature of the complaint will be revealed by an
eruption of petechiæ, first near the painful joints, but soon
extending, involving in many cases even the head and trunk. The
eruption may be at first slightly elevated and surrounded by a fine
halo of hyperæmic injection.
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