North American Medical and Surgical Journal, Vol. 2, No. 3, July, 1826Various
History
North American Medical and Surgical Journal, Vol. 2, No. 3, July, 1826
Various
Medicine -- Periodicals
Dr. GOLIS, from observing the marked connexion "between the turgescent
state of the brain from chylopoietic disturbance, and its serous
inflammation, has concluded, that it essentially pertains to it;"
consequently, that "whenever it occurs, it is a part of it;" that it
should be considered as forming the first stage of the disease, and that
in all instances, it precedes the excitement. He has, for the same
reason, constituted all the symptoms of the chylopoietic disease into
the first stage of hydrocephalus. Dr. AYRE shows, however, that this
state of turgescence, is not essential to the disease, and is only a
sympathetic effect, which in the majority of instances, requires no
treatment, (at least a very subordinate one,) other than that of the
primary affection. He concludes his remarks on hydrocephalus, with the
following words.
"The cerebral turgescence and disturbance, therefore, in
whatever degree they may exist, are only, when sympathetically
produced, to be considered as morbid causes, whose presence,
where the predisposition prevails, may lead to a serous
inflammation of the tissues of the brain, but which do not
form, in any sense, parts of the disease itself; since, under
every degree of them, they are so frequently remediable, by
means which are alone available, for the removal of their
distant and sympathetic cause."
Of _Hydrothorax_, Dr. AYRE very justly remarks, that, as its name
imports and as defined by Nosologists, it consists of symptoms, which
strictly speaking, pertain only remotely to the true disease--arising,
as they do, from a certain disturbance given to the lungs, by the
pressure of water upon them. They are only the symptoms, therefore, of
the effusion, and as the excitement sometimes terminates with the
occurrence of the serous discharge, its existence, in many cases, is
discoverable only by its effects--there existing no signs, which clearly
point out the presence of that state, previous to the appearance of the
effusion; and what are usually called, by writers on the subject,
premonitory symptoms, being only those of an inferior degree of the
effusion which has already commenced.
Like hydrocephalus, hydrothorax may be idiopathic or symptomatic; and
proceed from a local or general cause--the nature of the inflammation
being the same in both cases. It may likewise be divided into an acute
and chronic form. When the disease is symptomatic, and arises from a
local cause, it is generally chronic. When it arises secondarily from a
disease of the lungs, our author thinks, that
"The mode by which this state is induced in the serous
membranes, is by the chronic inflammation that exists in the
diseased organ extending to them; and not by the same form of
inflammation being set up in them, by a certain sympathy or
consent of parts, which, from a loose analogy, has been thought
to subsist between similar structures."
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