The water cure in chronic disease : an exposition of the causes, progress and terminations of various chronic diseases of the digestive organs, lungs, nerves, limbs and skin : and of their treatment by water, and other hygienic means / by James Manby Gully.

  • James Manby Gully
Date:
1856
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The water cure in chronic disease : an exposition of the causes, progress and terminations of various chronic diseases of the digestive organs, lungs, nerves, limbs and skin : and of their treatment by water, and other hygienic means / by James Manby Gully. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    1 diriiiuislied contractile power of those vessels. There is more or less excess and congestion of blood in the part, an excess which obtains at the expense of other and healthy parts. It is tlie excess which causes the stvelUnrj of inflamed parts, their redness, ihexv increased heat, (the unusual quantity of blood secreting an unusual quantity of caloric) and their }^id)ifidness, the pressure of the excessive blood on the surrounding nerves rendering them irritable, although, as I shall have occasion to show here- after, inflammation of internal parts may exist without pain (in the usual acceptation of the word) and without redness. In the next place, the chemical changes that go on in the blood undergo modification, in consequence of this excess and retardation of its movement. This is shown by the increased heat already alluded to ; and further, if the inflammatory congestion be not relieved, the blood secretes pus—the matter of abscess—either in the shape of a collection called an abscess, or the same flows freely from the surface of a mucous membrane, forming a bad kind of expectoration, &c. But the chemical changes in question vaiy endlessly with the diseased part. In the stomach, there is acid instead of insipid mucus and gastric juice; in the hver there is acrid and dark instead of sbghtly bitter and yellow bile; from the kidneys, acid instead of alkaline secretion ; and so on. The most fami- liar instance of this as a signal of disease is the state of the tongue when the mucous lining of the stomach is dis- ordered. The variety of the secretions there is endless, and each one corresponds with a certain shade of conges- tion of blood in the membrane tliat covers the tongue. Judge, tlicn, how numerous are the shades of diseased action in that single tissue of the body ! Such, then, is the condition of a part when it is in the acute stage of disease. The phases of the process may be briefly stated as follow:— 1. The a])plication of excessive stimulus to the nervously- endowed blood-vessels of the part. 2. Excessive contraction of the blood-vcsscis in conse- quence, with expulsion of their contained blood. 3. Exhaustion and relaxation of the same blood-vessels, with consequent excessive influx and retention of blood in them.