Neuralgia and the diseases that resemble itAnstie, Francis Edmund
Science
Neuralgia and the diseases that resemble it
Anstie, Francis Edmund
Neuralgia
or thirty grain doses), it will not be advisable to ply the patient with
any remedies of the narcotic-stimulant class, but to trust to tonic
regimen and the use of galvanism.
The mention of muriate of ammonia, which, for migraine and clavus and
the milder forms of sciatica, not unfrequently proves useful in stopping
the violence of a paroxysm and enabling the patient to get some
refreshing sleep, leads me to notice that not only may a variety of the
milder narcotic-stimulants be employed in this way, but the external
stimulus of heat to the extremities (very hot pediluvia) greatly
assists the action of any such remedies; especially if mustard-flour be
added, so that a mild vapor of mustard rises with the steam and is
inhaled. Perhaps the ideal medication, to arrest a bad sick-headache, is
to give twenty grains of chloral, and make the patient plunge his feet
in very hot mustard-and-water and breathe the steam. He can hardly fail
to fall asleep for a longer or shorter time, and awake free from pain.
(_d_) The use of bromide of potassium in neuralgia is a subject of great
importance, and which requires much attention and discrimination. In
common with, I dare say, many others, I made extensive trial of this
agent when it first began to be much talked of, but was so much
disappointed with its effects in neuralgias, that at one time I quite
discarded it in the treatment of those affections. Renewed experience
has taught me however, that, though its use is restricted, it is
extremely effective if given in appropriate cases and in the right
manner. For the great majority of neuralgias it is quite useless, and,
what is more, proves often so depressing as indirectly to aggravate the
susceptibility of the nervous system to pain. The conditions, _sine quis
non_, of its effective employment seem to be the following: The general
nervous power, as shown by activity of intelligence, and capacity of
muscular exertion and the effective performance of co-ordinated
movements, must be fairly good, find the circulation must be of at least
average vigor; the patient must not have entered on the period of
tissue-degeneration. Among neuralgics who answer to this description,
those who will benefit by the bromide are chiefly subjects--especially
women--in whom a certain restless hyperactivity of mind and perhaps of
body also, seems to be the expression of Nature's unconscious resentment
of the neglect of sexual functions. That unhappy class, the young men
and young women of high principle and high mental culture to whom
marriage is denied by Fate till long after the natural period for it,
are especial sufferers in this way and for them the bromide appears to
me a remedy of almost unique power. But I wish it to be clearly
understood that it is not to the sufferers from the effects of
masturbation that I think the remedy specially applicable: on the
contrary, it is rather to those who have kept themselves free from this
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