Vicious circles associated with disorders of the heart / by Jamieson Hurry.

  • Jamieson Boyd Hurry
Date:
1908
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Vicious circles associated with disorders of the heart / by Jamieson Hurry. 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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    VICIOUS CIRCLES ASSOCIATED WITH DISORDERS OF THE HEART,* Logicians apply the expression “ vicious circle ” to a fallacy (argumentum in circulo) in which a proposition is used to establish a conclusion and is afterwards proved by that 'same conclusion, so that, as in a circle, there is no starting point. Many years ago the expression was transferred into medical nomenclature to indicate a morbid condition In, which cause and effect act reciprocally on each other.t Vicious circles are very numerous and play a more Important part In the processes of disease than has hitherto been recognized. Many of them result from a failure of Nature’s efforts at compensation, and are there- fore of interest both to clinician and to pathologist. Elsewhere1 I have suggested a classification based on etiology (organic, mechanical, chemical, Infective, neurotic circles, etc.), and have given examples of vicious circles affecting the various organs of the body. The study of the subject as affecting a single organ possesses even greater advantage, since the inter-relations of such circles come more clearly into view. The organ best suited for the purpose Is probably the heart, since the vital and mechanical phenomena pre- sented by cardiac lesions are unique in their variety and interest. The heart, moreover, has maladies of local origin and maladies of peripheral origin, thus supplying an extensive field for observation. At the same time, * Read before the Reading Pathological Society, t Dr. (afterwards Sir H.) Holland, F.R.S. (Medical Holes and Reflec- tions,, p. 99), gives an excellent description of a vicious circle in 1839, and there are probably still earlier references. [167/08]