On spasm, languor, palsy, and other disorders, termed nervous, of the muscular system / by James Arthur Wilson.

Date:
1843
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On spasm, languor, palsy, and other disorders, termed nervous, of the muscular system / by James Arthur Wilson. 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.

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    organic divisions of the body, which may not occa- sionally be relieved, by giving mechanical support to the lower muscles of the abdomen. Headache, cough, relaxation, or habitual constipation of the bowels, that have resisted all approved means of medicine internally administered, have, in the end, been cured, by the uniform pressure of a lower supporting bandage. The effect here, is, not that the muscle is superseded, but that a fascia is supplied. Time is thus obtained, by the removal of weight below, for the upper mus- cular fibres to ^recover their healthy tone and full power of contraction. EFFECTS OF DRESS ON CERTAIN MUSCLES OF THE FRAME. It is not here intended to raise the great question of female privilege that, in a medical treatise, would be at once implied by the mention of ladies' stays. Whatever be the claim of health, in the right and usege of woman's dress its plea would not prevail. These are the vested interests of fashion, which were never yet conceded to physic. Indigestion, with all its miseries,—congestion, which rapidly becomes inflam- mation,—or is gradually developed into chronic disease, according to the temperament of the individual, are among the frequent results of a pressure contrived to prevent the elastic uplifting of the lower ribs; which closes the broad base of the lung against air, while it stuffs the heart and large vessels with unven-