On the constitutional treatment of female diseases / by Edward Rigby.
- Rigby, Edward, 1804-1860.
- Date:
- 1857
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: On the constitutional treatment of female diseases / by Edward Rigby. 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.
66/284 page 56
![function which have been considered in the previous chap- ters, and, like them, presents itself under a great variety of forms, as different as the treatment which they require. To render this subject strictly practical, or, in other words, to make my observations upon menorrhagia as available as possible for the diagnosis and treatment of those cases which the reader meets with, I must avoid the arbitrary divisions of schools and books, and consider the various modifications which the affection presents accord- ing to the nature of the causes which produce them. The differences which menorrhagia presents, as regards the dis- charge, are but of little importance in comparison with an accurate knowledge of the circumstances which induce it, for until we have mastered this part of the subject, we can neither hope to gain clear or orderly notions about it, or treat our patient on certain rules, or with justifiable hopes of success. I must therefore, in limine, discard the old arrangement of menorrhagia into the active and passive forms, although I freely acknowledge that, as far as it goes, it is essentially practical, and that the subject has been admirably treated by Dr. Locock under these heads {Encyclop. of Medicine)] but a little examination of it will show that they are quite inadequate to comprehend menorrhagia in all its varie- ties, or to afford simple and successful rules for treatment. The difference between active and passive menorrhagia is, after all, a question merely of degree, depending chiefly on the state of the circulation and power of the individual system; and between these two extremes we have every possible shade of variety, not only in different patients, but in the same person at different times. We might as well attempt to bring the various forms of diarrhoea under a similar arrangement, depending on the violence, &c, of the attacks, and without reference to the causes which had induced them. Viewing the subject in this way, we must first ascertain what are the conditions which cause the menstruation to be profuse, or, in other words, which induce menorrhagia, for it is by a careful investigation of the symptoms which point out these conditions, that we can hope to under-](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21006350_0066.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
