Vicious circles in disease / by Jamieson B. Hurry.

  • Jamieson Boyd Hurry
Date:
1913
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Vicious circles in disease / by Jamieson B. Hurry. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Mechanical Support. Another injudicious treatment is sometimes prescribed in cases of spinal curvature, where a mechanical support is relied upon for the cure of the muscular weakness. The support increases the spinal weakness, which by degrees requires more and more support. Applying the lesson to a much commoner article of attire than the spinal jacket, we may say that the corset creates the demand which it supplies. Venesection. But perhaps the best example of an artificial Circle may be found in the use of vene¬ section as practised for many centuries. Formerly, indeed, venesection was regarded as a panacea for almost every ailment, acute or chronic, and the evidence is only too clear that venesectio ad mortem. was no uncommon occurrence, death being erron¬ eously attributed to the illness instead of to the loss of blood. The custom was to bleed until the patient became faint, when recovery was allowed to take place. In the case of some diseases, such as pneumonia, peritonitis and typhoid, where there is fever or pain, some remission of the symptoms followed recovery from the faintness, a remission which was hailed as evidence of the beneficence of the operation, and led to its being repeated again and again, if fever or pain recurred. When, however, blood is drawn pleno rivo, the symptoms produced (palpitation, vertigo, violent