Aetiology and semeiology : consisting of Aretæus on the causes and signs of acute diseases; and Schill's Outlines of pathological semeiology.

Date:
1841
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Aetiology and semeiology : consisting of Aretæus on the causes and signs of acute diseases; and Schill's Outlines of pathological semeiology. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Woodruff Health Sciences Center Library at Emory University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Woodruff Health Sciences Center Library, Emory University.

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    BOOK I. ON THE CAUSES AND SIGNS OF ACUTE DISEASES. [THE FIRST FOUR CHAPTERS OF THE GREEK TEXT ARE LOST, AND THE COMMENCEMENT OF THE FIFTH IS DEFECTIVE.] CHAPTER V. ON EPILEPSY, The preclusive symptoms are dulness, dizziness, a sensation of weight in the back of the neck, fulness and distension of the cer- vical veins, nausea prevailing chiefly after taking food, though in a slighter degree while fasting; copious pituitous vomiting, loathing and indigestion follow even slight repasts, with flatulence and dis- tension of the hypochondriac regions. Such are the invariable attendants. If the paroxysm be near, there are flashes before the eyes, as of purple or dark hues, or of all colours simultaneously blended like the chequered bent of Iris' bow. The ears ring, there is a per- ception of heavy odours, an unusual irritability and wrathfulness. Some fall to the ground from mere prostration of mind, others from looking intently on a running stream, a top spinning round, or a wheel revolving; sometimes a disagreeable odour, as that of the gagate stone, oversets them. Occasionally the malady is fixed in the head, and that is the starting point of the paroxysm; in other cases it begins in the nerves, which are most remote from the head, and which sympathize with the part first affected. In these cases the thumbs or great toes become contracted ; pain, torpor, and tremor succeed, and rush upward to the head. If the head be reached, the patient feels a crack as if from the blow of a stone, or a block of wood, and when he hath arisen he exclaims that he has been smitten by some one designedly. Such is the delusion under which those labour who are assailed by the disease