Volume 1

The household physician : a family guide to the preservation of health and to the domestic treatment of ailments and disease, with chapters on food and drugs and first aid in accidents and injuries / by J. McGregor-Robertson ; with an introduction by John G. McKendrick.

  • M'Gregor-Robertson, J. (Joseph), 1858-1925
Date:
1899
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The household physician : a family guide to the preservation of health and to the domestic treatment of ailments and disease, with chapters on food and drugs and first aid in accidents and injuries / by J. McGregor-Robertson ; with an introduction by John G. McKendrick. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    500/602 (page 430)
    TREATMENT OF RHEUMATISM. [Sect. XIV. attack, the disease may occur in a much milder form, with slight fever lasting only a day or two, only one or two joints being affected. In many such cases the disease frequently returns. The length of the illness is never very definite, varying from two to six weeks or longer, but when the patient is properly attended to the severe symptoms should not last much beyond nine days. Itecoveiy of strength is, however, slow. Death from the rheumatism itself is not common. But in the train of rheumatism are a great many other diseases, especially heart disease (namely, valve disease of the heart (p. 239), and infiammation of the pericardium (p. 238)), inflammation of the lungs and air tubes, and various others. Indeed the great risk is that of affection of the heart. Treatment.—The patient should be in an open bed lying between blankets. The affected joints should be kept at rest. An aid to this is obtiiined by wrapping them in cotton wool, secured by a flannel bandage. The principal medicine now given is salicine or salicylate of soda. It is administered in 20-grain doses in water every two hours for twelve hours or so, when the pains are generally relieved and the fever falls. Thereafter the powders are repeated every three or four hours or at longer intervals. The evil of the remedy is that it frequently proiluces deafness and unple<a.sant noises in the ears, and sometimes sickness and faintness. In spite of the noises in the ears, &c., the powders should be persisted in if necessary, as the un- pleasant symptoms attending their use will pass away in a few days. But if sickness or faint- ness arise a more sparing use of them must be made. It is marvellous how quickly in many cases this treatment relieves. When it does so, the dose should be continued twice or thrice daily for sevend days after the fever has passed away. Then a quinine and iron tonic should be given, and great care must be taken for some time to prevent a relapse. Sometimes this treatment fails. In such a case the old treat- ment with potash must be resorted to. Thirty grains of acetate of potash are to be given every 3 or 4 hours. At bed-time 10 grains {to an adult') of Dover’s powder will relieve pain and help sleep. Quinine and iron tonics are also necessary after the fever has passed. Through- out the illness nourishing, easily’digested foods are to be given in small quantities frequently repeated. Milk and milk puddings, thin mutton broth, &c., are best, but no butcher meat should be allowed till recovery has taken place. Soda Wider and milk is a grateful drink to the patient. The bowels also require attention, an ordinary purgative medicine being given as required. Though the treatment has thus been men- tioneil in some detail, it is needful to say that no case ought to be without medical supervision, unless that is absolutely unavoidable. A phy- sician will often detect commencing affection of the heart, and take steps to prevent it if possible. Neglected cases too often end fatally in time because this evil has not been guarded against. Chronic Rheumatism, as it affects the joints, is discussed on p. 33. Section XIV.—SOME GENERAL DISEASES. TUBERCULOSIS AND SCROFULA. GOUT. CANCER. DROPSY. TUBERCULOSIS AND SCROFULA. Tuberculosis is the term ap))lied to a gen- eral disease, due to the formation of tubercles in various organs of the body. The nature of tubercles has been shortly explained on p. 165, and at greater length on p. 278, but to give a complete idea of the disease, the chief points of these explanations may be again men- tioned. A tubercle is a little nodule, grey in colour, about the size of a millet .seed, consisting of a collection of round cells. It is to be con- sidered as a new growth, foreign to the part in which it is present. The little nodule tends to increase in size by the growth of others round it. By its growth it destroys the substance of the i>art in which it is placed, occasioning also inflammation in the siuTOunding parts. It has no great vitality, and undergoes changes, which l)egin in the centre of the nodule, the result of which is to convert the firm grey mass into yellow cheesy material. The process may go on till the nodule becomes quite broken down into soft matter, and, if the matter can break out from the ]>art, an ulcer is left. Instead of softening, the nodule may become hard by the