Elements of medical jurisprudence / By Theodric Romeyn Beck and John B. Beck.
- Theodric Romeyn Beck
- Date:
- 1836
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Elements of medical jurisprudence / By Theodric Romeyn Beck and John B. Beck. Source: Wellcome Collection.
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![miles from home, cutting spars, carrying reeds up a ladder, and assist- ing his father in thatching a rick.* Mr. Dease states a case where a female servant, on receiving a slight injury from her master, ran to the door—said she had been almost murdered, and to corroborate it, fell into a fit. She was carried to a hospital, and lay for ten or twelve days without shewing the least sign of sense or recollection. Mr. Dease, on being called into consulta- tion, soon detected the imposture, and the woman almost immediate- ly disappeared: but popular indignation had nearly ruined the in- dividual in property, and consigned him for a time to a gaol. Even hydrophobia has been attempted to be feigned both in England and France, but with little success.-]- And I have seen it stated in an ex- tract from the United Service Journal, that a beggar once attempted tetanus at St. Bartholomew's Hospital. Mr. Abernethy, however, suspected the imposition; and, turning to one of the surgeons, as if in consultation, remarked what a remarkable symptom, in the last stage of this disease, incessant winking of the eyes was. The patient im- mediately began to wink with both his eyes. Nostalgia, or maladie du pays, is a disease common in military hospitals. This mental affection, if carried to excess, soon produces a physical one; and a mixed state is produced, in which all the marks of melancholy and hypochondriasis are visible. Young men are more subject to it than persons advanced in life ; villagers more than citizens ; and, among nations, it is found to prevail most in the Swiss, the Savoy- ards, the inhabitants of the Pyrenees, the Flemings, &c. Besides the above considerations, and that alteration of countenance which it is im- possible to feign, it may be added, that pretenders generally express a great desire to revisit their native country, whilst those who are really diseased are taciturn, express themselves obscurely on the subject of their malady, dare not make an avowal, and are little affected by the consolations which hope or promises offer to them. J The healthy colour, the strength and regularity of the pulse, and the aversion to low diet and setons, also serve to distinguish the one from the other. § It has been attempted to imitate scrofula, by exciting ulcers in the neck and lips with euphorbium or other acrid substances. Cicatrices from these have been exhibited. The scrofulous ulcer cannot, however, be imitated. Scurvy, also, was feigned by the French conscripts ; but they could not advance further than a bleeding state of the gums, in- duced by potash, &c.|| Various cutaneous affections, as tinea capitis, * Edinburgh Annual Register, vol. iv. part 2, p. 159. A remarkable case, about which there appears to be some doubt, is related by Dr. Henneu, p. 458. The ap- proach (not the touch) of a hot iron caused abundant marks of sensibility. ■f Orfila, Lemons, vol. i. p. 425. Medico-Chirurgical Review, vol. ix. p. 2G1. + Fodere, vol. ii. p. 463. § Orfila, Lecons, vol. i. p. 412. The only two cases of nostalgia I ever happened to meet with, do not bear out the general remark, that an inhabitant of a hill-country, or a village, exclusively, is liable to this disease. The first was a recruit, a country lad, from the fens of Lin- colnshire, who died under my charge, on bis passage to Canada in 1813; and the other, a London pickpocket, whom I saw this year (1824) in the hulks at Sheerness. —DUNLOP. 1| Orfila, Lemons, vol. i. p. 426.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b2044347x_0043.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
