Enteralgia and chronic peritonitis / by A. Jacobi.

  • Abraham Jacobi
Date:
[1889]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Enteralgia and chronic peritonitis / by A. Jacobi. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    Enteralgia and Chronic Peritonitis. By x\. JACOBI, M. D., of New York, N. Y. [Reprint from the Transactions of the Medical Society of Virginia, 1889.] Enteralgia means always an excessive irritation of a branch, or branches, of the sympathetic nerve. It is a better and more in- telligent term than that of “ colic and by its nature and seat, it is diagnosticated more or less readily by its differences both from the pain occasioned by renal or biliary calculi, and from a num- ber of affections of the surface. Amongst the latter, I refer mainly to rheumatism of the abdominal muscles, litem atom a of the same (mostly of the rectus) brought on either by over-exertion or purpuric changes in the blood-vessels; lumbo-abdominal neural- gia; or the neurotic sensitiveness of cutaneous nerves in hysteri- cal persons. Enteralgia being an affection of some nerve branch or branches of the intestine, its cause must be sought for either in the nerve itself and alone, or in a change of either the intestinal tissues, or the contents. The nerve may be affected directly by a hysterical and hypochondriac condition, by malaria and gout, and by poi- sons, such as lead ; or the pain may be the peripherous result of a disease of the spinal cord; or it may be the reflected effect of an irritating affection of the liver or genito-urinary organs or the skin. The latter cause is quite frequent. Indeed, sudden re- frigeration of the surface, “ cold,” is a more frequent occurrence than is claimed by some of those who look upon everything as obsolete and fallacious, only because it is old and has once been generally accepted.