Medical Inquiries and Observations, Vol. 1: The Second Edition, Revised and Enlarged by the AuthorRush, Benjamin
History
Medical Inquiries and Observations, Vol. 1: The Second Edition, Revised and Enlarged by the Author
Rush, Benjamin
Medicine; Yellow fever -- Pennsylvania -- Philadelphia
Tight bandages are likewise highly proper here. The laced stocking
has been much used. It is made of strong coarse linen. Dr. Underwood
gives several good reasons for preferring a flannel roller to the linen
stocking. It sets easier on the leg, and yields to the swelling of the
muscles in walking.
In scorbutic sores on the legs, navy surgeons have spoken in high terms
of an application of a mixture of lime-juice and molasses. Mr. Gillespie
commends the use of lime or lemon-juice alone, and ascribes many cures
to it in the British navy during the late war, after every common
application had been used to no purpose[66].
[66] Medical Journal, Vol. VI.
It is of the utmost consequence in the treatment of sore legs, to keep
them clean, by frequent dressings and washings. The success of old women
is oftener derived from their great attention to cleanliness, in the
management of sore legs, than to any specifics they possess which are
unknown to physicians.
When sore legs are kept from healing by affections of the bone, the
treatment should be such as is recommended by practical writers on
surgery.
I shall conclude this inquiry by four observations, which are naturally
suggested by what has been delivered upon this disease.
1. If it has been proved that sore legs are connected with a morbid
state of the whole system, is it not proper to inquire, whether many
other diseases supposed to be local, are not in like manner connected
with the whole system; and if sore legs have been cured by general
remedies, is it not proper to use them more frequently in local diseases?
2. If there be two states of action in the arteries in sore legs, it
becomes us to inquire, whether the same opposite states of action do not
take place in many diseases in which they are not suspected. It would be
easy to prove, that they exist in several other local diseases.
3. If the efficacy of the remedies for sore legs which have been
mentioned, depend upon their being accommodated exactly to the state of
the arterial system, and if this system be liable to frequent changes,
does it not become us to be more attentive to the state of the pulse in
this disease than is commonly supposed to be necessary by physicians?
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