Medical Inquiries and Observations, Vol. 2: The Second Edition, Revised and Enlarged by the AuthorRush, Benjamin
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Medical Inquiries and Observations, Vol. 2: The Second Edition, Revised and Enlarged by the Author
Rush, Benjamin
Medicine; Yellow fever -- Pennsylvania -- Philadelphia
No more happens in the cases of acute and chronic pneumony, than what
happens in dysentery and rheumatism. These two last diseases are for
the most part so acute, as to confine the patient to his bed or his
room, yet we often meet with both of them in patients who go about their
ordinary business, and, in some instances, carry their diseases with
them for two or three years.
The parallel which has been drawn between the pneumony and
consumption, will enable us to understand the reason why the latter
disease terminates in such different periods of time. The less it
partakes of pneumony, the longer it continues, and vice versa. What
is commonly called in this country a _galloping_ consumption, is a
disease compounded of different degrees of consumption and pneumony. It
terminates frequently in two or three months, and without many of the
symptoms which usually attend the last stage of pulmonary consumption.
But there are cases in which patients in a consumption are suddenly
snatched away by an attack of pneumony. I have met with one case only,
in which, contrary to my expectation, the patient mended after an
attack of an acute inflammation of the lungs, so as to live two years
afterwards.
It would seem from these facts, as if nature had preferred a certain
gradation in diseases, as well as in other parts of her works. There is
scarcely a disease in which there is not a certain number of grades,
which mark the distance between health and the lowest specific deviation
from it. Each of these grades has received different names, and has
been considered as a distinct disease, but more accurate surveys of the
animal economy have taught us, that they frequently depend upon the same
original causes, and that they are only greater or less degrees of the
same disease.
I shall now proceed to say a few words upon the cure of the different
states of pulmonary consumption. The remedies for this purpose are
of two kinds, viz. PALLIATIVE and RADICAL. I shall first mention the
palliative remedies which belong to each state, and then mention those
which are alike proper in them all. The palliative remedies for the
I. Or INFLAMMATORY STATE, are
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