Volume 1

The practice of medicine / by Thomas Hawkes Tanner.

  • Thomas Hawkes Tanner
Date:
1875
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The practice of medicine / by Thomas Hawkes Tanner. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    41/692 (page 13)
    1. HYPERiEMIA. Plethora, or fulness of blood \]iyperaimia, from 'YTrep - in excess + aijua^ blood; polymiia, from noXi;c = niuch ;] consists of an increase in the whole mass of the blood, to an extent very- variable in different cases. There is always a superabundance of the red corpuscles. The proportion of fibrin is probably unaltered, or it may be slightly increased. The albumen of the serum is unchanged; the quantity of water being rather diminished. When the blood is j)resent in too great abundance in one or more particular organs or tissues we say that there is local hyper- semia, or partial plethora, or congestion, or determination of blood. There is no increase in the total amount of blood, nor in any of its constituents. Indeed, local hyperaemia not uncommonly occurs in cases where the blood, taken as a whole, has been much dimi- nished in quantity or quality by disease. Thus I have seen a woman lose a large quantity of blood by flooding directly after parturition, and yet the breasts have become greatly congested at the end of forty-eight hours, just prior to the secretion of milk. Again, if an organ be irritated mechanically, we cause an increased flow of blood to it through the arteries, thus giving rise to active conges- tion ; a condition which, after a time, either decreases insensibly, or ends in haemorrhage, or passes into inflammation. When the re- turn of blood to the heart through the veins is impeded, as by the compression of one or more venous trunks, we have what is called mechanical congestion. Or again, the circulation of the blood through a part may be sluggish owing to want of tone in the walls of the vems and capillaries, as is often seen in persons debilitated by age or disease. We then have passive congestion. The blood being directly fed by the chvFe, it is evident that too free hving must be one of the most common causes of plethora The normal waste of tissue, and consequent expenditure of blood IS also impeded by a sedentary mode of life, but here there Avill generally be accumulated in the blood and tissues, products of imperfect metamorphosis. Sometimes plethora is hereditary and not unfrequently I have found it occur in women after the change of life.^' So again, this condition may result from the loss of an important part of the body. Thus, a spare man after ampu- tation of the hip-jomt became strong and robust; for since he took as much food as before the disease set in which rendered removal of Ins limb necessary, so of course he made as much blood as appeared needed for the nourishment of his body prior to nearly one-fourth part of it being removed. The existence of general hyperaemia is marked by symptoms which cannot be overlooked. The face appears full and turbid with a purplish tinge. The eyes seem rather small, and the coniunctiv^ more moist than usual. There is distension of the capiUaaT can be observed on the lips and mucous surfaces. S pS is