The Sporting Dictionary and Rural Repository, Volume 2 (of 2): Of General Information upon Every Subject Appertaining to the Sports of the FieldTaplin, William
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The Sporting Dictionary and Rural Repository, Volume 2 (of 2): Of General Information upon Every Subject Appertaining to the Sports of the Field
Taplin, William
Hunting -- Dictionaries; Sports -- Dictionaries
PALSY—is a disorder, or rather a species of disorder, so nearly allied
to the various degrees of staggers, apoplexy, or deprivation of sense,
that the best Veterinary writers do not seem to have laid down any fixed
rule, or unerring diagnostic, by which the discriminating shades, or
predominant traits, of _each_ are to be precisely ascertained. As the
causes may be different of either, so the disorder may be more or less
violent, according to the gradational excess of the cause. One attack of
the species may arise from a too great and sensible flux of the blood to
the brain, producing a severe and rapid inflammation: this, of course,
might be introduced by extra exertions of continued speed, or in drawing
loads of unreasonable weight; as well as from cruel and inhuman blows
about the head; and from the two latter it is, that most of these
disquietudes certainly proceed. Where the whole frame is affected, it is
then natural to conclude the BRAIN is more particularly the SEAT of
DISEASE, and that the whole system is from thence universally affected;
but where the attack is partial, affecting only one limb and extremity,
or any single part of the frame, it has then more the appearance of
spasmodic affection, acting solely upon the muscles of the precise spot
so far as they extend; and in the latter case, lay more readily open to
a chance of relief by topical application, than where the entire frame
and system is affected.
In the former, plentiful bleeding, followed by immediate hot
fomentations, prepared from the various aromatic well-known garden
herbs; succeeded by almost incessant friction with two able men, whose
persevering efforts should alternately relieve each other; rubbing in
occasionally stimulative embrocations of camphorated spirits,
incorporated with essential oils; will frequently relieve in a very
short space of time. In cases where the whole frame is affected, more
reliance must be placed upon internal administrations; because the same
means applicable to a single limb, or extremity, cannot be brought into
perfect use with the whole. BLEEDING, and persevering FRICTION, are as
strictly proper in one as in the other; but the extreme irritability of
the nervous system should be acted upon and reduced with all possible
and proper expedition: camphire, assafœtida, and gum ammoniacum, a
drachm each, blended with small proportions of opium, and formed into
small balls, with a sufficient quantity of mithridate, or London
philonium, should be introduced every _three_ or _four_ hours, till
there is a termination of the case one way or the other. The ancient and
well-founded axiom, that "dangerous diseases require desperate
remedies," cannot be more completely verified than in the different
species of this; where no hope or expectation of cure can be derived,
but from indefatigable exertion, and the most patient perseverance.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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