General therapeutics and materia medica: adapted for a medical text book (Volume 1).

  • Robley Dunglison
Date:
1843
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: General therapeutics and materia medica: adapted for a medical text book (Volume 1). Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    the highest office in the gift of his countrymen. Until about the age of 80, his pulse possessed the usual character appertaining to that of the aged; but, for some years before his death, it became quicker, beating nearly 90 in the minute, and more regularly than it had done. During early childhood, the same intermittent and irregular character exists in health, but the pulse is faster than in the adult. As a general rule, at birth the number of pulsations is from 130 to 140; at one year, 120; at two years, 110; at three years, 90; at puberty, 80; at the adult age, 70; and in old age, something higher. In the female, the pulse is on the average from 5 to 10 beats quicker than in the male. All these circumstances have of course to be borne in mind in investigating any case of disease. But owing to individual pecu- liarities, it becomes at times extremely difficult to pronounce upon the existence of a morbid condition from single symptoms,—as from the pulse; more especially from its degree of quickness or slowness, inasmuch as we are not always acquainted with the number of beats in the state of health. It is partly on this account, that Celsus termed it res fallacissima yet, it has even been made the ground of discrimination in a case of suspected insanity, and by an illustrious native of this country, whose transcendent abilities were at times obscured by his unbounded enthusiasm, and too prolific imagination. In counterfeited insanity, Dr. Rush remarks, the pulse will be natural; in real insanity it is generally more excited than in a state of health; and this diag- nostic Dr. Cooper has introduced into his collection of' Tracts on Medical Jurisprudence] as a fixed and invariable law; to which, at least, he has not attached any doubt or exception. The knowledge of this fact, adds Dr. Rush, has once been applied with success in the administration of the criminal laws of the United States. One of the two men who were condemned to die for treason, committed against the general government in the western counties of Pennsylvania in the year 1794, was said to have lost his reason after sentence of death had been pronounced upon him. A physician was consulted upon his case, who de- clared his madness to be feigned. General Washington, then President of the United States, directed a consultation of physi- cians upon his case. Dr. Shippen, Dr. Samuel P. Griffitts, and myself were appointed for that purpose. The man spoke cohe- rently upon several subjects; and for a while the state of his mind appeared doubtful. I suggested the propriety of examining his pulse—it was more frequent by twenty strokes in a minute, than in the healthy state of the body and mind. Dr. Shippen ascribed this to fear. I then requested, that the pulse of his companion, in guilt and fear, might be felt. It was perfectly natural in fre- quency and force. This discovery induced us to unite in a certi- ficate, that the man, who was only supposed to be mad, was 4*
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