The cyclopaedia of practical medicine: comprising treatises on the nature and treatment of diseases, materia medica and therapeutics, medical jurisprudence, etc., etc (Volume 1).
- Date:
- 1849-59
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: The cyclopaedia of practical medicine: comprising treatises on the nature and treatment of diseases, materia medica and therapeutics, medical jurisprudence, etc., etc (Volume 1). 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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![sometimes co-exist eruptions of another character (frequently scaly) upon the extremities. The acne syphilitica is always a secondary sy- philitic affection, consequent to chancre ; it is not uncommon to see it totally unaccompanied with any of the other secondary symptoms of that dis- ease, hut its most usual attendants are nodes, inflammation of the periosteum, and nocturnal pains. The specific treatment of acne syphilitica, which must still be that on which every prudent practi- tioner will chiefly rely, demands modifications adapted to the general nature of acne. In the early state of the eruption it is better to pursue the means found useful in the ordinary forms of that disease, and to reserve the mercurial treat- ment for the chronic stage. By this method a much smaller quantity of mercury suffices for the cure. The action of the mercury is rendered much more efficacious when combined with a course of taraxacum or sarsaparilla. In a case of this disease, which came under our care lately, the greatest improvement was effected in the eruption by the use of sai*saparilla alone, given in powder ; in general it is more efficient when combined with mercury, and we are acquainted with no prepara- tion which fulfils this intention better than the celebrated decoction or tisan of Feltz. (R. Aquse Oxii : Antimonii sulphurct. §iv : Rod. sarsa- parillse ^ii : Hydrargyr. chlorid. corrosiv. gr. iij . Ichthyocollse ,§iss. The antimony to be enclosed in a muslin bag, and the ivhole to be boiled gen- tly until the water is reduced one half, except the corrosive sublimate, which is to be added after the decoction has been strained,—Oiss is the pro- per daily dose.) As a local application the fumigation of cinna- bar is the most efficacious, lotions being of little avail. From one to three drachms of the red sul- phuret of mercury may be sublimed and directed upon the part by a suitable apparatus. Where indurations remain after the specific treatment, an ointment formed of the ioduret of mercury (R. Rydrargyri iodid. rubr. gr. xi. Adipis §i.) rub- bed upon the part, is a remedy of great efficacy, and is much assisted by the occasional use of a douche of vapour continued for twelve or fifteen minutes- T. J. Todd. [ACRODYNIA. Erythema acrodynia, E. acrodynum; from axpos, extremity, and o&vw, pain. A name given to an epidemic neurosis, which pre- vailed at Paris, and the neighbourhood, during the years 1828 and 1829, and in which the most con- stant and remarkable symptoms were numbness, formication, and, at times, darting pains in the hands and feet. The pain was compared by the patients to that which would be occasioned by needles or pins run into the parts. It was aug- mented by pressure ; was intense for a time; then diminished, and after a time disappeared, leaving the skin devoid of its natural feeling, and red— the cuticle separating in large flakes. Occasion- ally, the mucous membranes of the intestinal canal sympathized, as indicated by diarrhoea, vomiting, gastrodynia, &c. The only constant symptom, however, was the pain in the hands and feet. The disease was a precursor of the cholera, and not less inexplicable in its character and causation. Some died of it. It spread chiefly amongst the poorer classes, and where numbers of persons ~ere crowded together. In the Caserne des Our- Sin Paris, it^ttacked 560 of 700 inmates, and in that of La Courlille, in four days, 200 out of 500. No one died of it. Various remedial a3ents were employed ; but they appeared to be of little efficacy. I he phe- nomena were met by what appeared to be the most proper agents; and in the latter periods of the epidemic, the therapeutist confined him- self to the use of the warm bath, fomentations, frictions, and emollient and narcotic cataplasms. (Dance, in Art. Acrodynie, in Diction, de Mf.de- cine, i. 515, Paris, 1832.) About the same period, the Dengue (q. v.) ap- peared in the Southern part of this country and the West Indies. It seems to have been a con- generous affection. The same may be said of the affections which have occasionally been described under the name Kriebelkrankheiten by the Ger- mans. The writer had recently under his care a case of sporadic Erythema acrodynum, which yielded to pencilling the hands and feet with the tincture of iodine, after a variety of remedies had been used in vain. RoBLEY DuNGLISON.] ACUPUNCTURE. The passing a needle into the body is termed acuptincture. From for- getting that the word puncture has two significa- tions,—that it is used to signify both the wound and the act of making it, some have termed the operation acupuncfuration. But to subjoin the syllables ation to the word puncture or acupunc- ture, is as improper as to subjoin them to the words preparation or fabrication, each of which already ends in ation and has a similar twofold meaning. An exactly parallel error would be to say manufacturation. The most obvious purpose of this operation is to allow the escape of the fluid of cedema or ana- sarca through the skin, or of the blood when su- perficially accumulated ; but, from an idea that various disorders arose from a kind of subtle and acrid vapour pent up, it was had recourse to, for the purpose of giving this vent, by the Chinese, from time immemorial. From China the practice spread to Corea and Japan, where it has for ages been very common. Ten Rhyne, (Dissert, de Arthritide, de Acu- punctura, &c, London, 1693,) a medical officer in the East India Company's service in 1679, gave the first information to Europe of a practice unknown to the Greeks, Romans, or Arabians; and states that a guard of the Emperor of Japan, appointed to conduct the English to the palace, was seized with violent pain of the abdomen and vomiting, after drinking a quantity of iced water when heated. He took wine aftd ginger in vain; and then, persuaded that he had wind, had re- course to acupuncture in the presence of Ten Rhyne. It appears that the Japanese are liable to a violent kind of colic called senki, which they regard as too severe to arise from morbid matter in the cavity of the intestines, and ascribe to some- thing morbid in the parictes of the abdomen, the omentum, mesentery, and substance of the intes- tines, converted by its stay in these parts into a vapour, the escape of which from its narrow pri- son, by means of acupuncture, is immediately followed by a cessation of the pain and distension. The guard laid himself upon his back, placed the](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21116805_0052.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
