Observations on sciatica and other neuralgic affections : with a consideration of their frequent origin from a disordered state of the stomach ; interspersed with some novel views respecting the origin and prevention of gall-stones ... ; together with an account of the waters of Bagnères de Bigorre and Barége in their treatment / by Richard Carmichael.

Date:
1838
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Observations on sciatica and other neuralgic affections : with a consideration of their frequent origin from a disordered state of the stomach ; interspersed with some novel views respecting the origin and prevention of gall-stones ... ; together with an account of the waters of Bagnères de Bigorre and Barége in their treatment / by Richard Carmichael. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

    26/40 (page 24)
    ami satisfactory, but in others it failed altogether. The medium dose was a grain of the extract every sixth or eighth hour, which usually occasioned a sense of dryness in the throat, an indication of the effects of the medicine upon the system, and that it would not be safe afterwards to increase the quantity. But it is time, after this long digression, to return to my own case. However much my pains were relieved by opium, my stomach and general health became so very much de- ranged, that it was obvious I could not long hold out under my then system of management, or rather of mismanagement. I therefore called a meeting of my medical friends, who all reprobated my folly in seeing patients while confined to my bed; they, therefore, highly approved of my proposal to leave the country, for the mild, warm climate of the south of France, and the waters of Barege. Indeed, I was myself convinced of the necessity of trying some new system, as my favorite resource, opium, was beginning to fail in affording relief. Two of my medical friends were, I understood, of opinion, that the malady under which I laboured was not sciatica, but disease of the hip joint. The distinctive signs, however, between the two diseases are so w’ell marked, that 1 was, in my own mind, perfectly easy on this subject. The only symptoms in common between them is, the wasting of the glutei, as w'ell as the muscles of the entire limb; but the two following circumstances may decide our judgment, should any doubt exist. First, when the heel of the affected limb is stricken, the impulse of the head of the femur against the acetabulum w ill excite severe pain, if the disease is in the joint; but none whatever, should it be in the nerve; and, secondly, in sciatica, the pain follows the course of the branches of the sciatic nerve, so distinctly, that in my own case 1 w\as most uncomfortably reminded of my former dis- sections of those nerves, particularly of the perineal nerve, where it passes near the head of the fibula. In the advanced