The family adviser : greatly enlarged and amended ; to which is prefixed The philosophy of disease, with tables, for the use of students of medicine ; or of gentlemen who wish to become acquainted with the fundamental principles of medicine / by Henry Wilkins.

  • Wilkins, Henry, 1767-1847.
Date:
1833
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The family adviser : greatly enlarged and amended ; to which is prefixed The philosophy of disease, with tables, for the use of students of medicine ; or of gentlemen who wish to become acquainted with the fundamental principles of medicine / by Henry Wilkins. 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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    primary affection, and even when failing in its unifor- mity, a6 it does in affections of the heart, the brain and the lungs, its very irregularity is highly indicative. To this office (viz. index) it seems well adapted, as holding a place between the primary affection (or or- ganic paroxysm) and the prostrated organs of the sys- tem, which form the next set of sympathies. The arterial sympathy is an active one, as before said, but in addition to this, entire disease is constituted by a large set of passive sympathies, spreading over all the rest of the system. Thus the prima? viae (unless there be a paroxysm existing there) is in perfect inability. The muscular system is prostrated, and the mind sunk in feebleness. It is both a curious and a notorious circumstance, that in extensive disease, about one half the system is in an over or superaction, whilst the rest is in a sub-action. The most rational solution of this phenomena is, that those secondary sympathies, or passive affections, are dependencies on the arterial disturbances, rather than flowing immediately from the organic paroxysm; thus they are sympathies of sym- pathies. But still there is a shade waving over this apparent gleam of perception; and it is hard to say, whether the arterial disturbance has merely interrupted the connections of the vital energy existing between the different parts of the system, or whether (taking the vita] principle for an element) an accumulated action in one part has necessarily been followed by a deficiency in others.* It is a well-known fact, that when the arterial sym- pathy runs high, it is extremely injurious to the organic paroxysm that induced it, and is then no vis mede- catrix naturae for it extends the local affection beyond its first limits, nor can the primary affection stand any chance of recession, or of one of the more simple effusions, unless that sympathy is moderated by artifi- cial or accidental means;t and otherwise the paroxysm * There seems something like this in an intermittent, for the mo- ment the febrile paroxysm ceases, the muscles and stomach recover their strength, and the patient rises and often has an appetite to eat., t Such as bleeding and puking spontaneously or practised. 2*