Neuralgia and the diseases that resemble itAnstie, Francis Edmund
Science
Neuralgia and the diseases that resemble it
Anstie, Francis Edmund
Neuralgia
Some of the patients suffer, besides the pains in the limbs (which they
often describe as resembling the feeling of a tight band pressing
severely around the ankles or wrists), from frequent or occasional
attacks of genuine hemicrania; such a combination is to me always a
suspicious sign, and induces me immediately to direct my attention to
the possibility of chronic alcoholic poisoning. Otherwise, the
limb-pains are often spoken of as resembling rheumatism, but there is no
swelling of joints, and usually no decided tenderness of the painful
parts. The patient has usually a particular worn and haggard appearance,
complains of intense fatigue after the most moderate muscular exertion,
and is usually utterly indisposed to physical exercise even though the
mind, as already said, may display a feverish activity.
So far as I have seen, the subjects of this affection are by far the
most frequently women; and I am inclined to attribute this
predisposition of the sex not to inherent peculiarities of female
organization, but to the fact that a much larger proportion of
intemperate women than of intemperate men indulge in secret excess. They
never get drunk, probably, but they fly to the relief of alcohol upon
every trivial occasion of bodily or mental distress; and this habit may
have been going on for years before it comes to be suspected by their
friends or their medical attendant. Meantime, they have been more or
less looked upon, and have looked upon themselves as, "debilitated" and
"neuralgic" subjects, and have come, either with or without mistaken
medical advice, to consider free stimulation as the proper treatment for
the very ailments which have been produced by their own unfortunate
habits. I cannot avoid the expression of the misgiving, that imperfect
diagnosis, and consequent erroneous prescription, have done great harm
in many such cases. It has happened to me no less than three times
within the last six months to be called to lady patients, all suffering
from alcoholism induced by a habit of taking stimulants for the relief
of so-called neuralgic pain; and in the most distressing of these the
mischief had been greatly aggravated by a prescription of brandy, based
on the erroneous idea that the pains were truly neuralgic. I have
already protested against this kind of medication, even in cases that
are truly neuralgic in character; but it is doubly mischievous where
given for a state of things which actually depends on alcoholic excess.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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