The diseases of the rectum / by Richard Quain.

  • Richard Quain
Date:
1854
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The diseases of the rectum / by Richard Quain. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    27/322 (page 13)
    state, the haemorrhoids are liable to be affected by- attacks of general ill-health. As the joints of the gouty man, the morbid urethra of another, or the tender eye-lids of a third, suffer especially in case of even slight general derangement, so do the diseased hsemorrhoiclal vessels partake in the general dis- turbance. It is not that the gouty joint or the haemorrhoid is alone diseased, but that, being pre- viously in an altered state, these parts respectively take on unhealthy action more abundantly than other ordinarily sound structures. Moreover, as it is the digestive apparatus which suffers most frequently in slight ailments — from irregularities of diet, for instance—the haemorrhoids, on account of their direct connexion with the vascular system of the ali- mentary canal, are influenced by the general excited or altered action of the part; and they therefore often become a source of inconvenience, being in the intervals of such attacks quiescent. A case known to your professor, Dr. Sharpey, may be briefly mentioned, as apt to our present purpose. Case 3.—A gentleman now advanced in life has been habitually subject, since he was a young man, to bleeding from haemorrhoids. These are not other- wise troublesome, and the haemorrhage has not been considerable in amount. Such circumstances are so common as to be almost daily met with ; but there is here one peculiarity worthy of notice, namely, that this gentleman has always been able to predict the occurrence of the haemorrhage. He is enabled to do