A practical treatise on the diseases peculiar to women : illustrated by cases, derived from hospital and private practice / By Samuel Ashwell.

  • Ashwell, Samuel, 1798-1857.
Date:
1843
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A practical treatise on the diseases peculiar to women : illustrated by cases, derived from hospital and private practice / By Samuel Ashwell. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University.

    28/324 (page 22)
    nute vessels of the cutaneous surface, in which its place is supplied by a thin serous fluid ; and after death, a deficiency or even total absence of blood is observed, not only in the large arteries, veins, and right side of the heart, but likewise in the capillary system, which is remarkably pale and colorless. In these cases the membranous and parenchymatous tissues, such as the brain, lungs, liver, kidneys, ali- mentary canal, and the parenchyma of the heart and muscles, are also remarkably pale and exsan- gueous. Andral again says, In chlorosis several of the morbid phenomena first recorded are constantly ob- served ; and if this disease, as is now generally ad- mitted, frequently results from a defective formation of the blood, the cause of which may reside exclu- sively in the nervous system, can we with any show of reason refer either to irritation or sanguineous congestion, the proteus-like variety of functional derangements which chlorotic patients so constantly present, such as epileptic paroxysms, convulsions, chorea, dyspnoea, palpitations, vomiting, &lc. ? Or, shall we not approach nearer the truth, in assigning these different morbid phenomena to the same cause which produces them in persons who are reduced to a state of anaemia by the deprivation of food, light, and wholesome atmosphere ? We may appeal to the test of experience, to the leedentia and juvantia, for the further confirmation of this doctrine. Vene- sections employed in such cases to combat an irrita- tion, which in reality does not exist, invariably pro-