Copy 1, Volume 2

The study of medicine. Containing all the author's ... improvements / [John Mason Good].

  • John Mason Good
Date:
1829
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The study of medicine. Containing all the author's ... improvements / [John Mason Good]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    661/724 (page 651)
    various medical writers, that, though the disease can Gey. XII. hardly be called hereditary, it cannot be disputed, that an SPFe- 1+ individual born of rheumatic parents will be in greater artuum. risk of suffering from the complaint, than another person whose parents were quite healthy.. According to a table kept by M. Chomel, out of seventy-two rheumatic patients, thirty-six had rheumatic parents, twenty-four had healthy parents, and twelve could furnish no information on the subject.] How far the observation of Sir C. Wintringham Amputation is true, that those who have suffered amputation are sus- faencahe ceptible of this disease more than others*, the author the disease. cannot say from his own practice; but it is the remark of a physician who was not accustomed to form a hasty judgment. [The generality of writers, down to the beginning of the Textures. present century, admit that the seat of rheumatism may ;’ ae be either in the muscles, or the fibrous tissues, so called by Bichat, consisting of the capsules of the joints, fibrous sheaths, the periosteum, and other fibrous membranes, the aponeuroses, tendons, and ligaments. This is the doctrine of Riviere, F. Hoffman, A. Leroy, and Pinel; to whom is to be added M. Chomel. Amongst those who believe, that rheumatism may be seated indifferently, either in the muscular system, or the fibrous, some conceive that the disease never extends to the muscles but secondarily, and that it always first attacks the fibrous or ligamentous structures. Dr. Clutterbuck, in his lectures, even defines rheumatism to be an inflammation of the ligamentous structure connected with the different joints, and covering the muscles attached to them; which is in fact the theory of Bichat. Dr. Scudamore, who regards the tendinous portions of the muscles as the seat of rheumatism, believes, that, if the muscular fibres were inflamed, they would be affected with swelling, which is not the case, while an in- crease of volume is always observable in the fibrous struc- tures attacked. In opposition to the hypothesis of Dr. C. Smyth, that the essential seat of rheumatism is in the muscles, Dr. Scudamore does not consider the permanent weakness of these organs, the diminution in their size, the imperfection of their action, and the pain following their * Comment. de Morbis quibusdam. Art. 79.