Elements of the theory and practice of medicine ; designed for the use of students and junior practitioners / by George Gregory ... [etc.].

  • George Gregory
Date:
1835
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Elements of the theory and practice of medicine ; designed for the use of students and junior practitioners / by George Gregory ... [etc.]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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

    32/700 (page 12)
    ^* OKNEHAL DOCrniNE OK PKVKn. [CVflJi 1, of the investigation is very unsatisfactory. The theories of fever are ahnost infinite, every sect in medicine having had its own way of viewing the subject. They may be divided into those whicli consider fever as a general disorder, involv- ing more or less all parts of the body; and those which look upon it as primarily local in its origin. To tlie former belong the theories of Hippocrates, Galen, ]}oerhaave, lloHman, Cullen, and Wilson Philip. The earliest opinion on the nature of fever was that of Hippocrates, who imagined it to be a fermentation of the blood, of a salutary tendency, whereby some noxious or peccant matter was thrown off. It is remarkable that this opinion was entertained before the class of eruptive fevers was known, the phenomena of which certainly afford the greatest countenance to it. Galen enlarged this theory, and gave as the proxi- mate cause of fever a degeneration or putrefaction of other humours besides the blood, particularly the bile. It cannot be denied that there is a foundation in nature for a division of fevers into the two great classes of inflammatory and bilious. Sydenham adopted the Hippocratic theory; and the same doctrine was supported by Stahl, who acknowledged, however, that when the morbific matter was too abundant, or the powers of the body not sufficiently energetic, fevers were hurtful. Boerhaave assumed as the essence or proximate cause of fever, a lentor, or viscid state of the blood, which the heart propels with difficulty. Hence arises the necessity of an accelerated circulation to remove the obstacle. The most rational views of the intimate nature of fever are those of Hoffman, who, without neglecting the apparatus of the blood vessels, taught that a still greater influence attached to the brain and nerves. His notion was, that fever consisted primarily in atony, or a diminished energy of the nervous system. Without following this author through the minute explanation of the several symptoms of fever which he founded upon this doctrine, we may be permitted to say, that as a general principle it is fairly admissible, and that it satis- factorily accounts for many of the first and most characteristic among them. Dr. Cullen went a step farther, and argued that the diminished energy of the brain brought on spasni of the extreme vessels, which spasm was the real proximate cause of fever. Since Dr. Cullen s time there have been