The constitutional effect of prolonged intestinal toxemia / William Seaman Bainbridge, A.M., M.D., Sc.D., New York.

  • William Seaman Bainbridge
Date:
[1925]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The constitutional effect of prolonged intestinal toxemia / William Seaman Bainbridge, A.M., M.D., Sc.D., New York. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    6/28 page 4
    spite of the severity of the cardiac impairment. Dr. F. A. Craig recently reported “that in nine thousand cases of intestinal toxemia which he treated, one third of the patients had had sanatorium expe¬ riences for socalled neurasthenia/’ He adds “that in many of these cases there were very clear evi¬ dences of toxic poisoning—sluggishness of. the men¬ tality, loss of concentration, memory and coordina¬ tion.” The mental depression and depreciation as¬ sociated with prolonged intestinal toxemia are, in many instances, of severe type. Patients so handi¬ capped are unable to concentrate. They are subject to attacks of faintness, vertigo, neuralgia and head¬ ache due to the large excess of toxic material in the circulation. Sir Arbuthnot Lane reports the case of a medical man who for years had been so drowsy, much of the time, as to appear to be under the influence of a narcotic. In time, the condition became so intoler¬ able that it was impossible for the physician to con¬ tinue in practice. Finally, he was operated upon and, following the surgical correction of the intestinal stasis, the mental condition cleared and the patient was enabled to resume his professional life. In an earlier paper, I recorded a series of cases of abnormal mammary changes apparently caused by autointoxication. In many of these breasts a condensation or lobular induration of the upper, outer quadrant, develops usually along the edge of the large pectoral muscle, and where the depen¬ dent breast drags on the upper axillary margin. In some cases there is an abnormal discharge from the nipple, in conjunction with the condition described above. Such terms as toxic breasts, lumpy breasts, or stasis breasts are applicable to mammary changes of these types. The two following cases are reported to illustrate 1, the result upon an abnormal breast condition of the surgical correction of the intestinal stasis, and 2, the return to normal of the mammae when a coex¬ istent intestinal toxemia was relieved by therapeutic measures.
    No text description is available for this image
    No text description is available for this image
    No text description is available for this image