Neuralgia and the diseases that resemble it / by Francis E. Anstie.

  • Francis E. Anstie
Date:
1885
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Neuralgia and the diseases that resemble it / by Francis E. Anstie. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University Libraries/Information Services, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University.

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    neuralgia, even of great severity, when there are strongly- marked neurotic tendencies. It must be noted, however, that many cases of pain in leucorrhoeal subjects, which superficially bear the aspect of neuralgia, turn out on closer investigation to be merely examples of myalgia of the abdominal muscles or aponeuroses. 3. Calculus in the kidney, or in the ureter, sometimes causes intolerable ovarian neuralgia. In the case of a woman who was under my care at the Chelsea Dispensary, some years ago, this was tlie unsuspected origin of severe neuralgic pains in the left ovary, which recurred several times a day, and which certainly contributed to the patient's death by the exhaustion which they produced. A calculus was found tightly impacted in the uterer, near the kidney. 4. Prolapsus uteri sometimes gives rise to severe peri-uterine neuralgia, or what appears to be such; though it is diflBcult here to draw the line between neuralgia and myalgia. The commonest kind of pains from prolajDSus uteri are not neural- gic in their nature at all, but are of a bearing down charac- ter, and probably depend upon actual contractile movement of the walls of the uterus. 6. The presence of tumors, either cancerous or fibroid, in the uterus or its appendages, gives rise, frequently, to severe aisi indeed almost intolei'able pains of a distinctly intermittent character. In the eai4y stages of cancerous diseases these pains are usually felt at the lower part of the back ; in the later stages they are felt also in the hypogastric region, andai'e then much more severe. 6. Ulcer of the cervix, of a non-malignant kind, probably £ff)metimes gives rise to neuralgic pain of the uterus, though this is not so severe as in cancer. 7. Large masses of scybalous faeces, impacted in the rectum, will occasionally, by the pressure whiich they exert on nerves, set up violent neuralgia of uterus or ovaries, the true nature of which is accidentally discovered by the use of aperients which unload the uitestine and put an end to the suffering. No doubt it is chiefly in persons with neuralgic predisposition that this effect- is produced; for, common as is the occurrence of extreme constipation in women, it is comparatively very rare for us to hear of distinctly neuralgic j^ain being caused by it. 8. The condition known as ii'ritable uterus, ever since Gooch's classical description of it, is always attended with uterine pain, which is continuous, but is liable to periodical exacerbations of great severity. In this disorder there is no recognizable physical disease of the pelvic organs, and the pa- tient will generally be found to have suffered neui*algia in other parts of the body on previous occasions. [There is some differ- ence of opinion about this affection : some authors (e.g., Han- field Jones) considering it as distinct from the true neuralgias.]
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