An encyclopedia of the practice of medicine, based on bacteriology / [John Buchanan].

  • John Buchanan
Date:
1890
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An encyclopedia of the practice of medicine, based on bacteriology / [John Buchanan]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    tion in the blood pressure, or the rapidity of the blood current? In all the states mentioned, from simple congestion up to con- tracting kidney, the walls of the glomeruli are actually perme- able, permitting the passage not only of thin fluids and colloids^ but even of semi-solids, and this too in parts of the kidney pre- senting no recognizable structural alterations. Even a slight relaxation temporarily induced will give rise to albuminuria, and it may occur in dyspeptic people, in weak, overgrown persons, without being an indication of actual or potential renal disease. To arrest the escape of albumen, in addition to general tonics and nutritious diet, try first nitro-glycerine, then either erigeron or gallic acid and port wine ; or convallaria maidis ; or ergot, or corn smut; or aromatic sulphuric acid and quinine. This is met with either acute or chronic. Alcoholism. In acute alcoholism, the mucous membrane of the stomach and duodenum is greatly congested. Patches of aphthci; {oidiumalbicans) are formed upon it, and the mucous membrane of the stomach is covered all over with*a thick ropy mucus, heavily loaded with the sarcinae ventriculi, slightly tinged with blood. The gastric juice is altered in quantity as well as quality. The brain, lungs, kidneys are congested and the pericardium and pleura are filled with bloody serum. In chronic alcoholism, there are always and invariably present chronic gas- tritis, congestion or cirrhosis of the liver, etnphysema, or tuber- culosis of the right lung, fatty degeneration and dilatation of the heart, atheroma of the blood vessels and interstitial nephritis. As the whiskey in the blood circulates as a free agent, it irritates and degenerates every organ, gland and tissue of the body, retards their working capacity, and arrests the normal metamorphosis. The poison has a special action on the brain, inducing in all cases chronic inflammation, with effusion of lymph, which causes thick- ening of its entire substance; besides the brain is literally steeped in the poison, which withers, whittles down the organ to a mis- erable state of atrophy, an anaemia. In long standing cases, cer- ebral softening occurs, and in such the viscera are fatty, the sub- cutaneous tissue and omentum being loaded with that non-vital element, if they are beer, ale or wine drinkers ; while those who drink spirits are thin, spare, prematurely old, on account of the increase of the connective tissue. Perpetual drinking gradually induces a tubercular diathesis, with the tubercular bacilli in blood. The blood in chronic alco- holism besides contains more fat than normal; one of the first effects of the alcohol is a true chemical combination with nerve
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