An examination of the practice of bloodletting in mental disorders / by Pliny Earle.

  • Earle, Pliny, 1809-1892.
Date:
1854
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An examination of the practice of bloodletting in mental disorders / by Pliny Earle. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    cerebral disturbance long prior to this period, and had not had a natural night's rest in three months. In another case, the patient was plethoric, under great vascular ex- citement, and hertreatment was commenced immediately after the occurrence of insanity, which was two days after labor. In a fourth case, the patient was not benefit- ted by the practice : in a fifth case, the patient died in about a fortnight after her first attack, and was probably injured by the treatment; and in the sixth case, blood was taken from the arm a few days before, and a few days after delivery—in the first instance with relief, but in the latter with an aggravation of symptoms. § 14. The symptoms in the early stages of puerperal mania are sometimes so deceptive and so simulate those of phrenitis, that practitioners are led to draw blood in large quantities. That venesection is occasionally useful, there can be no doubt. I can imagine it so even in some cases of delirium tremens, because the most judicious practitioners have found it of advantage—but in the great majority of cases of puerperal mania, it will only tend to increase the delirium and endanger life. Muttering or violent delirium, heat and tossing about of the head, con- traction of the pupils, a frequent pulse, constant jactita- tion of the body, with movements of the limbs and a dry tongue, constitute a group of symptoms indicative of what is called, in the books, inflammation of the brain—but a species of inflammation, if inflammation it be, which may be better treated by anodynes and stimulants than by blood-letting. Abercrombie mentions a variety of inflam- mation of the brain, in which venesection is fatal and wine useful. Some forms of puerperal mania resemble it. Finally, we should bleed, not because there is a fre- quent pulse and violent delirium, but because there exists some good reason for so doing, as, for example, when the