The water-cure in chronic disease : an exposition of the causes, progress and terminations of various chronic diseases of the digestive organs ... and of their treatment by water, and other hygienic means / by James Manby Gully.

  • Gully, James Manby, 1808-1883.
Date:
[1847?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The water-cure in chronic disease : an exposition of the causes, progress and terminations of various chronic diseases of the digestive organs ... and of their treatment by water, and other hygienic means / by James Manby Gully. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    o OF ClIEONfC DISEASE IN GENEKAL. Every disease is, in its onsetting, acute; that is to say, the symptoms are intense, pressing in character, and if Nature, either with or without the aid of Art, does not soon bring relief, extinguishes the individual. The relief and the escape from death are brought about either by transfer of the morbid action from the original seat of disorder to some less important part, and the elimination of some secretions therefrom—an action to which the term crisis has for three thousand years been applied; * or, no such transfer occurring, the acute state of disease in the affected ])art passes into the chronic state— chronic disease is established. Preliminary, therefore, to fixing what constitutes chronic disorder, it is necessary that we should obtain some pre- cise idea of what constitutes the acute form. I shall next proceed to imiuire into the minute changes of organs which induce the idienomena of chronic disease. All the circumstances of chronic disease, generally, will then be considered. Applications of the general doctrine and cir- cumstances will then be made to individual diseases. In the course of these inquiries, I shall take occasion to show how acute disease is originated, and chronic disease main- tained and exasperated by internal stimulation. And finally, I shall show how the treatment of chronic disease by water, and other hygienic means, obviates this incon- venience, is more safe than any other plan of treatment, and conies in aid of the natural and only permanent pro- cess towards recovery. * It is well to note this, as all the world has of late spoken of a “crisis” as a new ])rodigy; a mistake which some writers on the water cure would seem to encourage, either from ignorance of the literature of medicine, or from some silly idea that the novelty may add to the eclat of the treatment they profess. IIippockates was the first to use the term crisis as applied to a termination of disease, and he lived A.M. 350U.