When the joints become affected, the cartilages swell, and the quantity
of the lubricating matter is increased; the tendons are surrounded with
a glairy matter, like the white of egg; and, lastly, the bone becomes
enlarged. These effects are attended with stiffness and pain in the
joint, which is sometimes intolerable, especially during the night, and
confined to a single spot, from the disease residing chiefly there. In
some time after this, small abscesses form in different parts of the
inflamed joint, which gives it a spongy elastic feel. These bursting
into one another, form a larger cavity, which communicates with the
articulating surface of the bones, and reaches to the skin, through
which a fluctuation may be felt. This abscess at last bursts, and
discharges a curdy matter. Long before this happens, the bone generally
ulcerates, and becomes rough. This disease is uniformly attended with
hectic, which terminates the patient’s misery.
Not unfrequently, in scrophulous people, eruptions appear on different
parts of the body, especially on the face, which is covered with
pustules of a dark red colour, suppurating slowly, and sometimes never.
At other times, we find incysted tumors on different parts of the body.
These may appear in any habit; but when they occur in scrophulous
people, they assume the specific action of the constitution; in which
case, instead of containing an uniform fluid, like thin jelly, of a
yellowish colour, as the simple incysted tumor does, they are filled
with a thick curdy purulent-looking matter, or with serum, containing
white flakes, little lumps, of a white substance.
All the causes capable of inducing simple inflammation will of
consequence induce the scrophulous inflammation, provided that the
inflammation be not induced in such a way, and in such organs as make
it heal rapidly, as will be afterwards noticed. Specific inflammation
is likewise modified when it takes place in a scrophulous constitution,
and is much more tedious in its cure. This is evidently seen in the
small pox and venereal disease.
Although the effects of a scrophulous constitution, in modifying
action, be most distinctly observed in the inflammatory action, yet
it does not operate exclusively on this; on the contrary, we find,
that typhus fever, and some other actions, which may exist without
any perfect local inflammation, are, cæteris paribus, more violent in
scrophulous habits than in others.
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