A treatise on the history, etiology, and prophylaxis of trismus nascentium / by John M. Watson.

  • Watson, John M. (John McClaran), 1798-1866
Date:
1851
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A treatise on the history, etiology, and prophylaxis of trismus nascentium / by John M. Watson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    pressed by those writers—all disagreeing in their etiological expositions, indeed, so much so, as greatly to impair our con- fidence in their writings. Dr. Cullen, a copious writer on other subjects, has treated the one under consideration with great brevity; conscious of his apparent neglect, he says apologetically:—It is a disease that has been almost constantly fatal, and this, also, com- monly in the course of a few days. The women are so much persuaded of its inevitable fatality, that they seldom or ever call for the assistance of our art. This has occasioned our being little acquainted with the history of the disease, or with the effects of remedies in it. But this is not the secret; physicians had seen this disease often enough, but did not understand it; they had also treated it, but had not cured it; had sought out its cause and pathology, but had not found them; hence, forsooth, so many writers have avoided the great difficulties involved in its obscure history, controverted etiology, unknown pathology and intractable course. Col- ley, Condie, Churchhill, and others, though greatly skilled in eclecticism, have gathered but little valuable or satisfactory information from the writings of others on this subject. Jour- nalists, knowing that systematic writers have failed to ac- count for the phenomena of this disease, and being unre- strained by any known facts, have propagated, and vainly attempted, by reporting cases, to prove, many fanciful and untenable conjectures. To a particular instance of this kind, I will now refer:— Dr. J. Marion Sims, of Montgomery, Ala., has published in the Medical Journal of the Medical Sciences some interesting Observations on Trismus Nascentium, with cases illustrat- ing its etiology and treatment. From all of which he de- duces the following strange and unwarrantable conclusions: That Trismus ]\ascentium is a disease of centric origin, depending upon a mechanical pressure, exerted on the me- dulla oblongata and its nerves; that this pressure is the re- sult, most generally, of an inward displacement of the oc- cipital bone, often very perceptible, but sometimes so slight as to be detected with difficulty; that this displaced condition