Medical Inquiries and Observations, Vol. 2: The Second Edition, Revised and Enlarged by the AuthorRush, Benjamin
Science
Medical Inquiries and Observations, Vol. 2: The Second Edition, Revised and Enlarged by the Author
Rush, Benjamin
Medicine; Yellow fever -- Pennsylvania -- Philadelphia
III. The gout affects most of the viscera. In the brain it produces
head-ach, vertigo, coma, apoplexy, and palsy. In the lungs it produces
pneumonia vera, notha, asthma, hæmoptysis, pulmonary consumption, and
a short hecking cough, first described by Dr. Sydenham. In the throat
it produces inflammatory angina. In the uterus it produces hæmorrhagia
uterina. It affects the kidneys with inflammation, strangury, diabetes,
and calculi. The position of the body for weeks or months on the
back, by favouring the compression of the kidneys by the bowels, is
the principal reason why those parts suffer so much in gouty people.
The strangury appears to be produced by the same kind of engorgement
or choking of the vessels of the kidneys, which takes place in the
small-pox and yellow fever. Four cases of it are described in the 3d
volume of the Physical and Literary Essays of Edinburgh, by Dr. David
Clerk. I have seen one instance of death in an old man from this cause.
The catheter brought no water from his bladder. The late Mr. John Penn,
formerly governor of Pennsylvania, I have been informed by one of his
physicians, died from a similar affection in his kidneys from gout. The
catheter was as ineffectual in giving him relief, as it was in the case
of my patient. The neck of the bladder sometimes becomes the seat of
the gout. It discovers itself by spasm, and a suppression of urine in
some cases, and occasionally by a habitual discharge of mucus through
the urethra. This disease has been called, by Lieutaud, "a catarrh of
the bladder." Dr. Stoll describes it, and calls it "hæmorrhoids of
the bladder." But of all the viscera, the liver suffers most from the
gout. It produces in it inflammation, suppuration, melena, schirrus,
gall-stones, jaundice, and a habitual increased secretion and excretion
of bile. These affections of the liver appear most frequently in
southern countries, and in female habits. They are substitutes for a
gout in the ligaments, and in the extremities of the body. They appear
likewise in drunkards from ardent spirits. It would seem that certain
stimuli act specifically upon the liver, probably for the wise purpose
of discharging such parts of the blood from the body, as are vitiated
by the rapidity of its circulation. I shall, in another place[58],
take notice of the action of marsh miasmata upon the livers of men and
beasts. It has been observed that hogs that live near brewhouses, and
feed upon the fermented grains of barley, always discover enlarged or
diseased livers. But a determination of the blood to the liver, and
an increased action of its vessels, are produced by other causes than
marsh miasmata, and fermented and distilled liquors. They appear in the
fever which accompanies madness and the malignant sore-throat, also in
contusions of the brain, and in the excited state of the blood-vessels
which is produced by anger and exercise. I have found an attention to
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