The modern practice of physic : exhibiting the characters, causes, symptoms, prognostics, morbid appearances, and improved method of treating the diseases of all climates / by Robert Thomas, M.D., of Salisbury.

  • Thomas, Robert, 1753-1835.
Date:
1813
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The modern practice of physic : exhibiting the characters, causes, symptoms, prognostics, morbid appearances, and improved method of treating the diseases of all climates / by Robert Thomas, M.D., of Salisbury. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.

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    If the disease is likely to prove fatal, either by its continuing a long: time, or by the severity of its symptoms, then a stai ting of the tendoiis. picking at the bed-clotiics, iuvohiatary discharges by urine and stool, coldness of the extremities, and hiccups, will be observed: where iio sucn appearances take place, the disease will g-o tnrough its course, and at length cease. As a fever once produced will go on, although its cause be entirely • removed, and as the continued or fresh application of a cause of fever neither will increase that w^hich is already produceq, nor occasion a new one,* there can be no certainty as to the diu-ation of fever; and it is only by attending to certahi appearances or changes, wiiicii usually take place on the approach of a crisis, that we can form any opinion or de- cision on this head. Tiie symptoms pointing out the approach of a crisis, are, the pulse becoming soft, moderate, and near its natural speed ; the tongue losing its air and becoming clean, v/ith an abatement of thirst; the skin being covered with a gentle moisture, and feeling soft to the touch ; the secre- tory organs performing their several offices', and the urme depositing- fiaky crystals of a dirty red colour, and becoming turbid on being allow- ed to stand any time. Many physicians have been of opinion, that there is something in th? nature of ail acute diseases, except those of a putrid kmd, which usually .determines them to be of a certain duiation ; and therefore that these terminations, when salutary, happen at certain periods of the disease rather than at others, unless disturbed in their progress by an improper mode of treatment, or the arising of some accidental circumstance. These periods are known by the appellation of critical days, and from the time of Hippocrates down to the present, have been pretty generally admitted. The truth of them, I think, can hardly be disputed, however they may be interrupted by vaiious causes. A great number of pheno- mena shew us, that, both in the sound state and the diseased, nature has a tendency to observe certain peiiods : for instance, the vicissitudes .of sleeping and watching, occurrmg with such regulaiity to every one ; the accurate periods that the menstrual flux observes, and the exact time-of pregnancy in all viviparous animals, and many other such instances that might be adduced, all prove this law. With respect to diseases, every one must have observed the definite periods which take place in regular intermittents, as well those universal as topical, in the course of true inflammation, v/hich at the fourth, or at the farthest seventh day, is resolved, or after this period changes into either abscess, gangrene, or sciiThus : in exanthematous eruptions, Which, if they are favourable and regular, shew themselves on a certain and definite day; for example, the small-pox about the fourth day. All these appear to be founded on immutable laws, according to which the motions of the body in health and in disease are governed. The days on which it is supposed the termination of continued fevers Ideas fupported by Di'. George Fordyce.—See his Treatife on fimple Fevcr^