The principles of surgery / [James Syme].

  • James Syme
Date:
1832
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The principles of surgery / [James Syme]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    49/752 page 21
    Next in order as a source of derangement from diminution of usual action ought to be reckoned the skin. The effects of checked perspiration, or mere chilling of the skin, in occasioning general fever and local inflammation, are constantly presented to our attention ; and it is surprising that some writers on inflammation should have attributed to cold a power of causing direct irritation, from the evidence afforded by cases in which it plainly operated indirect- ly through the medium of the system, by diminish- ing action in the part to which it was applied.* Whenever an accustomed secretion or action of any kind is suppressed, though there may not ensue indications of actual disturbance, there is always a strong disposition to it; and therefore all operations, even of the most trivial kind, ought to be abstained from in such circumstances, as the direct irritation proceeding from them, together with the indirect in- ducement to derangement already present, might pro- bably occasion violent local and general disorder. 2. A diseased action may, from long continuance, become as it were adopted by the system, so as to oc- casion disturbance by its suppression. This fact is well known to the vulgar, who have in consequence the greatest dread of interfering with local complaints of long-standing, especially such of them as are attended with discharges. This prejudice is no doubt generally carried too far; but it should be carefully recollected, that excited and disordered action of a part, which has ceased to irritate the sys- * Thomson on Inflammation, p. 57.
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