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.

    260/306 (page 240)
    PREDOMINANCE OF ONE FACTOR Were the factors which constitute the Circle iso¬ dynamic, recovery would be impossible. If, for example, with the Circle of pulmonary haemorrhage, the cough (factor A.) expelled an ounce of blood from the respiratory passages, while the associated increase of blood-pressure (factor B.) caused another ounce to escape from the bleeding vessel, the morbid process would continue until death resulted from anaemia. Or if in pruriginous disease the secondary scratching caused as much fresh eruption as the Vis medicatrix cured, recovery would be hopeless. What Unna says of eczema would be widely applicable : “ By this noxious Circle very trivial attacks of eczema, such as the erythemato-squamous or pityriasiform variety, may be transformed into hard callous eczema, which lasts for the rest of life.” 1 But since the Vis medicatrix represented by factor A. as a rule is predominant over the Vis malefica, here represented by the factor B, recovery is the general rule, even when no special treatment has been applied. REST The enforcement of rest is another method by which Nature breaks the Circle, pain being often an intermediary. Thus progressive myopia may be attended by such severe asthenopia that all work 1 Mracek, Handbuch der Hautkrankheiten. Vol. II., p. 300.