Pathological inquiries ; or an attempt to explain the phenomena of disease and philosophically to direct the methods of cure / [Sir George Smith Gibbes].
- George Smith Gibbes
- Date:
- [1820?]
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Pathological inquiries ; or an attempt to explain the phenomena of disease and philosophically to direct the methods of cure / [Sir George Smith Gibbes]. Source: Wellcome Collection.
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![1 NT RO DU C ri’ IO S. is dependant—1st, upon the force and nature of the cause* —2dly, upon the degree of the disease—and Srdly, on the organ in which it takes place.—Thus, 7— A determination of blood in the brain produces dis- order of the head ; a rupture on its surface may produce hemiplegia; and a rupture of a blood-vessel near the origin of the eighth pair of nerves would produce an immediate death. 8— That in disorders not incompatible with the conti- nuance of life, a secondary disease, which succeeds as a consequence of a primary one, is remedial in regard to its own cause—that if a third, a fourth, ora fifth function is disordered, the general tendency of these consecutive affections is to cure the primary one; and that to this end they all concur. 9— That just so many functions undergo a secondary de- rangement as are requisite for the cure of the primary one. 10— .That if death happen in the course of the processes, whose effect would otherwise be remedial, the event takes place from a deficiency of vital energies to sustain the ac- tions which are preparatory to the cure. 1 ] — That these tendencies to secondary disease are a provision against the effects of unnatural living; and are possessed though rarely exercised by animals whose ap- petites are purely instinctive. That in such, the primary disease rarely takes place ; and that in them, the same mode of cure is often exhibited when the primary does occur as an effect of domestication. 67. —Diseases therefore under this idea are not the causes of death; they are formed by the re-actions and exertions of the constitution to repel those causes which would produce it; but these exertions having failed, death inevitably supervenes from a default of power in the con- stitution to avert its occurrence. 68. —To render this explanation of disease still more intelligible, we will suppose an instance in which a man receives a blow upon his head, or indeed upon any other organ, essential to his existence. The direct tendency of that accident is to suppress immediately the vital functions; the action of the heart is first impeded; it is rendered slow, and the circulation is depressed; and if this state of depression did not speedily yield to a salutary effort on the part of the constitution, death must supervene—what then is the salutary process which nature under these circumstances occasions? It is that which we denominate](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b29291689_0024.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
