Observations on some of the more important diseases of women / Edited by Thomas Castle.
- James Blundell
- Date:
- 1840
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Observations on some of the more important diseases of women / Edited by Thomas Castle. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University.
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![the rectum, prolapsus of the uterus, procedeutia of an enlarged ovary, not to mention other concurrent accidents of less import- ance,1 are now and then observed; nor must we lose sight of this, when we are endeavouring1 to investigate the morbid anatomv of this disease. They usually attack the patients by Jits. Haemorrhoids usually attack the patient by fits : for weeks she may labour under them, and for weeks together she may he free from them. As with the catamenia, so with the haemorrhoids, though far more rarely, there may be an evident transfer of action from the head to the rectum. Previous to the attack, the head may have been as giddy and aching as in cases of amenorrhoea, and when piles come on, all the cephalic symptoms may be very much in the same manner, as by a flow from the uterus. Blind Piles—Bleeding Piles. Tnder an hemorrhoidal attack, patients are sometimes affected with the tumours merely, without bleeding, and accompanied with shooting pains, which may cause them to complain severely: now those constitute what are denominated, by the lower classes of society, the blind piles. In other cases, where there is a smart attack, there is, too, a discharge of blood; that is, one or more of the varicosed hemorrhoidal vessels, veins, or arteries, opens, and it is from those vessels that the discharge takes place; hence, this variety is commonly called the bleeding piles. The quantity which escapes is various—sometimes, however, large: a pint, a quart, a greater measure, may be effused, and much alarm may be occasioned by the consequent collapse, though death itself is rare. If the haemorrhoids are external, the blood gets away immediately; but if they are internal, the blood discharged may coagulate and come away by the forcing of the patient, who supposes that the ordinary contents of the bowels require evacuation, and is greatly surpiised and alarmed to observe a large effusion of blood. Effects of Ha?norr]ioids on the constitution. Under the milder attacks, the health may be very good, and its relief of the head may render it desirable; but where the attacks arc frequent, and the eruptions of blood large, there the health may be very greatly reduced—debility, irritability, dropsy, nay, in some 1 A discharge of mucus from the vagina is a concomitant symptom of the piles; for the internal iliac artery supplies both the haemorrhoidal vessels and those about the vagina with blood, and it will be difficult to restrain this discharge whilst the haemorrhoidal tumours continue.—Sir C. M. Clarke. The labia and the nymphre are also apt to be more swelled, from their vessels being distended.—Ibid.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21033274_0169.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
