Lectures on some of the applications of chemistry and mechanics to pathology and therapeutics / by H. Bence Jones.

  • Jones, Bence, 1814-1873.
Date:
1867
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Lectures on some of the applications of chemistry and mechanics to pathology and therapeutics / by H. Bence Jones. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    Perspires copiously. Makes much urine, and often by day and by night, and has done so these forty years. Says his pulse occasionally intermits, and has long done so, I found it steady and at 80 in the minute. His father died of diseased heart at 77. My patient had some bronchial trouble last winter. Had lately some redness of the toe for a day or two. Comes to me that I may see what he is when well, as he means to put himself under my charge whenever he is ill. He had noticed some floating substance (not sand) in his urine, and was curious to know what it might be. I found the urine had specific gravity 1032-0, and it contained slight but decided evidence of sugar. In a year and a-half another examination found more sugar, and four years after that I found three grains, and on another occasion five grains of sugar to the ounce. There were no other symptoms of diabetes. Usually the sugar acts as a diuretic and causes thirst, whilst the appetite is often voracious; but although much is eaten, the strength and flesh more or less rapidly fall off. A girl, aged 18, was in St. George's Hospital April, 1852, who said she ate a two-pound loaf at each meal, and that she drank a pail and a half of water daily, and rapidly grew thin and weak. After her admission she passed twelve pints of urine in twenty-four hours. A labourer, aged 32, when admitted, told me his water ebbed and flowed. The greatest flow, he said, was seven gallons, the ebb five pints. With regard to the loss of flesh take the following state- ments :— A gentleman, aged 62, at the beginning of the disease lost two stone in three months. Another, aged 37, in August, 1852, lost fourteen pounds in five days, passing two gallons of urine, sp. gr. 1050, daily. A physician, aged 72, told me that in four or five months he had lost forty pounds weight, but he regained most of his loss. The following is the best example I can give you of the symptoms in an acute case :— E 2