Copy 1, Volume 1

The study of medicine. Improved from the author's manuscripts, and by reference to the latest advances in physiology, pathology, and practice / [John Mason Good].

John Mason Good

Date:: 1834

Credit: The study of medicine. Improved from the author's manuscripts, and by reference to the latest advances in physiology, pathology, and practice / [John Mason Good]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

161/784 page 107

${ CL. I. | . DIGESTIVE FUNCTION. [oRD. I. period; when the patient, with a sudden sense of faintness and inanition, will perhaps devour an inordinate quantity of almost any food that can be obtained at the moment; though, in many cases, there is a fanciful longing for a particular kind, as for herrings, of which Tulpius gives an instance of a lady, who in this state devoured four hundred at a meal.* In these instances, it is probable that the urgent desire becomes a stimulus to the secer- nents of the stomach, and that a greater quantity of gastric juice is in consequence poured forth. _. In like manner, voracity and the sense of hunger occur also as a symptom in many cases of helminthia, or worms in the stomach or duodenum. But from the emaciation which usually accompanies such persons, it is most probable, that the inanition or emptiness of the stomach is here produced, not by a rapid or elaborate digestion, but by an irritable state of the muscles of the stomach, which contract too readily, and force the food into the intestines before chymification has taken place. In the Phil. Trans. Dr. Burroughs relates the case of a patient, who, from this cause alone, was rendered capable of devouring an ordinary leg of mutton at a meal for several days together, and fed greedily at the same time on sow-thistles and other coarse vegetables. The best. means of treating idiopathic voracity must be as variable as the efficients that produce it. When we have reason to ascribe it to a morbid state of the stomach in respect to tone or secretion, purgatives, and especially those that are warm and bitter, as aloes, may be found successful. Stimulating stomachics have been found equally so; whence Galen very judiciously re- commends frequent and small doses of brandy, and Riverius, of ambergris. If these do not succeed, the stomach should be kept for some days in a state of constant nausea: and, with this view, as well as with that of destroying the morbid irritation on which the voracity depends, opium will often be found a highly salutary medicine. If the disease be produced by worms, or any other remote irritation, it can only be conquered by conquering the primary affection. And if it depend on a preternatural enlarge- ment of the pylorus, a perfect cure is beyond the reach of art ; though some benefit may be derived from strong external pressure. + The second variety, resulting from a gluttonous habit, is far more common, and very readily produced; insomuch, that there ‘is not perhaps a corporate town in the kingdom that does not offer abundant examples of it. It is, in fact, one of the numerous evils to which idleness is perpetually giving birth; for, let a man have nothing to do, and he will be almost sure, whenever he has an opportunity, to fill up his time by filling up his stomach: and hence the lazy train of servants that vegetate from day to day, almost without locomotion, in the vestibule, hal], and other avenues of a great man’s house, eat three or four times as many meals as their masters, who may possibly be employed, from morning till # > Lib.:ii. + Inacase under M, Rostan, in 1819, ice, administered inwardly, considerably abated for a time the fury of the patient’s hunger. (Med. Gazette for July, 1833.) Several pieces of tania were afterwards expelled by means of purgatives. As her hunger decreased, her appetite became. depraved, so that she would devour the raw lights of slaughtered animals, and browse upon grass. — Ep. 107 Gen. V. Spec. I. a L. Avens organica. Treat ent. B L. Avens helluonum. Gluttony.$