Reflections on fever : and particularly on the inflammatory character of fever / by Lyman Spalding, M.D.

  • Lyman Spalding
Date:
1817 [i.e. 1818]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Reflections on fever : and particularly on the inflammatory character of fever / by Lyman Spalding, M.D. 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.)

    17/50
    3. Pains over the whole body, but more particularly i;* the head and back. When all the functions of the body are duly per- formed, so easy, agreeable, and pleasant is sensation, that we are scarcely conscious of our existence ; but the moment any function is illy performed, then come pains, aches, and a train of woes which fully remind us of our frail state. There is no difficulty in tracing the seat of this symp- tom to the muscular structure itself. The slightest mo- tion aggravates all the pains, and convinces the patient that the moving powers are affected. In fact, the mus- cles feel sore to the touch. No person could expect them to remain free of pain, since their life has been almost destroyed. Proximate cause. A very great diminution of the life, ef the muscular fibres. Since the stomach is muscular, and very powerfully affected in the onset of fever, we presume that the ner- vous connexion which exists between that organ and the back of the head and neck, by means of the par vagum and spinal accessory nerves, the intercostal and cervicals, will account for the pains being particularly located in that place. Second Stage.—The stage of morbidly increased action, or the hot stage, is divisible into three suits of symptoms. I. Suit; [I] which symptoms are shortly followed by redness of the face, [2] throbbing of the temples, [3] great restlessness, [4] intense heat, [5] and unquenchable thirst, [6] oppression of breathings [7] and nausea. This suit is composed of seven distinct symptoms. 1. Which symptoms are shortly followed by redness of the face. The increase of colour of the surface of the body is so evidently dependent on an accumulation of the blood in the minute arterial ramifications, that no investigation becomes necessary, to assign the circulating system as the seat of this symptom. The proximate cause is equally evident, morbidly in- creased action of the circulating system, particularly of the minute arterial ramifications.
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