Clinical manual for the study of medical cases / edited by James Finlayson.

Date:
1886
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Clinical manual for the study of medical cases / edited by James Finlayson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    39/790 page 21
    now among the commonplaces of medical observation. And the description of the phthisical body by Aretieus is equally deserving of perusal, as a sample of accurate appreciation of detailed facts emanating from remote antiquity. The most important facts of the description referred to are as follows, but the -whole chapter in the excellent translation of Dr. Adams well merits perusal:— Voice hoarse; neck slightly bent, tender, not flexible, somewhat extended; fingers slender, but joints thick; of the bones alone the figure remains, for the fleshy parts are wasted ; the nails of the fingers crooked, their pulps are slu-ivelled and flat, for, owing to the loss of flesh, they neither retain their tension nor rotundity; and owing to the same cause, the nails are bent, namely, because it is the compact flesh at their points which is intended as a support to them; and the tension thereof is like that of the solids. Nose sharp, slender; cheeks prominent and red; eyes hollow, brilliant, and glittering; swollen, pale, or livid in the countenance; the slender parts of the jaws rest on the teeth, as if smiling; otherwise of a cadaverous aspect. So also in all other respects ; slender, without flesh; the muscles of the arms imperceptible; not a vestige of the mammas, the nipples only to be seen; one may not only count the ribs themselves, but also easily trace them to their terminations; for even the articulations at the vertebrae are quite visible; and their connections with the sternum are also manifest; the intercostal spaces are hollow and rhomboidal, agreeably to the configuration of the bone; hypochondriac region lank and retracted; the abdomen and flanks contigu- ous to the spine. Joints clearly developed, prominent, devoid of flesh, so also with the tibia, ischium, and humerus; the spine of the vertebras, formerly hollow, now protrudes, the muscles on either side being wasted; the whole shoulder-blades apparent like the wings of birds. If in these cases disorder of the bowels supervene, they are in a hopeless state. But, if a favourable change takes place, symi^toms the opposite of those fatal ones occur.—AretcEus, Causes and Symptoms of Chronic Diseases, Book I., Chapter viii.. On Phthisis. In association with the various atrophic and anaemic states above referred to, we have to consider the physiognomic import of another much abused word, around which, as around the words diathesis and temperament, a great deal of very obscure pathology has been made to revolve. Cachexia, in its original and etymological sense (Ka/co's and e£ts), means any bad or defective habit of body—hahitus de]3mvatus—usually the result, not the cause, of disease. The term habit here
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