The practice of medicine / by Thomas Hawkes Tanner.

  • Thomas Hawkes Tanner
Date:
1872
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The practice of medicine / by Thomas Hawkes Tanner. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.

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    the blood, which at first was quite watery and poor, had grown much thicker under the process of transfusion. The question naturally arises whether the injection of healthy blood can sufficiently excite the blood- forming organs to such a normal action as to keep up the supply of nu- tritive material. At present, the answer would seem to be in the negative. In anaemia dependent on too severe mental occupation, the phosphate of iron or zinc, or the phosphoric acid in some tonic infusion (F. 376, 405, 414), together with cod liver oil, do much good. In such cases the blood gets poor and watery to a marked degree ; and hence requires to be enriched by rest from intellectual pursuits, a diet more than ordinarily rich in nitrogenous materials, as well as by the employment of chalybeates. Coffee, wine or bitter ale, and even tobacco in great moderation will prove useful. Overwork of the brain produces undue destruction of the nervous tissue, and consequent deterioration of the vital force, as cer- tainly as too prolonged or too intense muscular action, or as an insuffi- cient supply of nourishment. Invalids from tropical climates very often suffer from anaemia. This will possibly be the result of long residence in malarious districts ; or it may be the sequel of hepatitis, fever, dysentery, and cholera. In the treatment of remittent and intermittent fevers, &c, in India, bleeding and mercury and purgatives and low diet often constitute the remedies. Leeches appear to be employed by dozens at a time; and of course they must usually produce severe and protracted anaemia. Sir James Ranald. Martin mentions several cases where hundreds of these blood-suckers had been used during an illness. One gentleman, who was so unlucky in 1855 as to fall from his horse, had twenty-two dozen applied at once; while another was invalided for life, after the employment of at least three thousand leeches in six years.* Necessarily, in patients thus treated, the blood remains impoverished, and the whole system enfeebled, for a very long time after the European has returned home:—in fact, the disease, whatever its nature, could hardly be more injurious than the remedy. Amongst the symptoms by which anaemia is especially characterized in tropical invalids, we find repeated haemorrhages, passive congestions of the thoracic or abdominal viscera, and abdominal neuralgic pains. Let the nature of these signals of debility be mistaken, or allow depletion in any form to be resorted to, and very grave mischief will result. The only remedies of any avail are good food, ferruginous tonics, a complete holi- day, and a residence in the country air. Sir Ranald Martin particularly recommends a visit to the Highlands of Scotland, a suggestion not to be forgotten. A peculiar form of anaemia, technically known as Chlorosis [XAcopdq = green], frequently affects young women about the age of puberty. Ac- cording to some authorities this disease has its origin in the nervous system; the disturbance of the digestive, circulatory, and uterine func- * The Influence of Tropical Climates in producing the Acute Endemic Diseases of Europeans. Second Edition, p. 652. London, 1861.