Popular Lectures on Zoonomia: Or The Laws of Animal Life, in Health and DiseaseGarnett, Thomas
Science
Popular Lectures on Zoonomia: Or The Laws of Animal Life, in Health and Disease
Garnett, Thomas
Physiology
in greater quantity, after a few days abstinence; and this abstinence
having in some degree accumulated the excitability, he would find
himself much relieved by wine, and would exultingly tell them, that
they were mistaken. Circumstances of this kind seem to have staggered
their faith a little, but still the idea of active inflammation which
they believed was visible, and almost palpable, dwelt so upon their
minds, that they were but half convinced. The favourite idea of
increased action of the vessels of the part had so interwoven itself
with every other, that we find it never lost sight of, in the
indications of cure. Hence, though bleeding is not now generally
practised with the lancet, yet leeches are often applied; but the
most usual plan is to consign the patient to patience and flannel;
strictly forbidding wine, or fermented liquors. As an exception to
this general mode, it is however observed, by some practitioners,
that when the stomach is weak, and when the patient has been much
accustomed to the use of strong liquors, a little animal food, and
even wine, may be allowable, and even necessary.
Thus has an erroneous view of the disease been the cause of an inert
practice, which wavers between the suggestions of a favourite
hypothesis, and the conviction of facts.
On inquiry, however, we shall find none of the increased vigour in
the system, which has been suspected, nor increased action in the
part more particularly affected; on the contrary, the whole body is
in a state of indirect debility, or exhausted excitability, and the
part more particularly affected, in a state of asthenic inflammation.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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