An introduction to medical literature, including a system of practical nosology : intended as a guide to students, and an assistant to practitioners. Together with detached essays, on the study of physic, on classification, on chemical affinities, on animal chemistry, on the blood, on the medical effects of climates, on the circulation, and on palpitation / by Thomas Young.
- Date:
- 1823
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: An introduction to medical literature, including a system of practical nosology : intended as a guide to students, and an assistant to practitioners. Together with detached essays, on the study of physic, on classification, on chemical affinities, on animal chemistry, on the blood, on the medical effects of climates, on the circulation, and on palpitation / by Thomas Young. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.
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![REMARKS ON PALPITATION, AS AFFORDING A DIAGNOSTIC OF DROPSY. [From the Medical Transactions, vol. V, p. 257.] Tiie point on which I intend to insist, in the first instance, is the effect of a fluid in transmitting an agitation of any kind, to a more or less remote part of the body; an effect which I consider as affording an explanation of some symp- toms, which would otherwise appear to militate against the true theory of the actions of the heart and arteries. The efficacy of a watery fluid, in transmitting a pulsatory mo- tion, is indeed well known, from the common test of fluc- tuation, where the impulse of a slight blow, on one side of a cavity, is speedily and directly transmitted to the other side, and sometimes repeated by a kind of reflection, which is very justly considered as indicating the presence of a fluid in the cavity, especially in that of the abdomen ; but it is remarkable, that an effect nearly similar is observable, when the water surrounds, instead of being contained in, the ca- vity : thus, when the body is immersed in a bath, an imper- fect appearance of fluctuation is produced by striking the parietes of the abdomen with some force.; and, what is still more surprising to one who has not considered the subject, the pulsation of the descending aorta, and of its subdivisions, the iliac arteries, may often be distinctly felt by pressure on](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21915805_0669.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
