|
Main
- books.jibble.org
My Books
- IRC Hacks
Misc. Articles
- Meaning of Jibble
- M4 Su Doku
- Computer Scrapbooking
- Setting up Java
- Bootable Java
- Cookies in Java
- Dynamic Graphs
- Social Shakespeare
External Links
- Paul Mutton
- Jibble Photo Gallery
- Jibble Forums
- Google Landmarks
- Jibble Shop
- Free Books
- Intershot Ltd
|
books.jibble.org
Previous Page
| Next Page
Page 34
This heavy diet-list, reached in a few days by a woman who had been
unable to digest with comfort the lightest meal, seemed certainly
surprising. I have not given in full the amount of food eaten at
meal-time. Small at first, it was increased rapidly owing to the
patient's growing appetite, and became in a few days three large meals.
It is necessary to see the result in one of these successful cases in
order to credit it. Mrs. C. began to show gain in flesh about the face
in the second week of treatment, and during her two months in bed rose
in weight from ninety-six pounds to one hundred and thirty-six; nor was
the gain in color less marked.
At the sixth week of treatment the soup was dropped, wine abandoned, the
iron lessened one-half, the massage and electricity used on alternate
days, and the limbs exercised as I have described. The usual precautions
as to rising and exercise were carefully attended to, and at the ninth
week of treatment my patient took a drive. At this time all mechanical
treatment ceased, the milk was reduced to a quart, the iron to five
grains thrice a day, and the malt continued. At the sixth week I began
to employ strychnia in doses of one-thirtieth of a grain thrice a day at
meals, and this was kept up for several months, together with the iron
and malt. The cure was complete and permanent; and its character may be
tested by the fact that at the thirtieth day of rest in bed, and after
five years of failure to menstruate, to her surprise she had a normal
monthly flow. This continued with regularity until eighteen months
later, when she became pregnant. The only drawback to her perfect use of
all her functions lay in asthenopia, which lasted nearly a year after
she left my care. Fatigue of vision for near work is a common condition
of the cases I am now describing, and is apt to persist long after all
other troubles have vanished. When there is no asthenopia I usually
think well of the general chance of recovery; but in no case of feeble
vision do I omit at some period of the treatment to have the optical
apparatus of the eye looked at with care, because pure asthenopia, apart
from all optical defects, is a somewhat rare symptom.
Neither am I always satisfied with the ophthalmologist's dictum that
there is a defect so slight as to need no correction, being well aware,
as I have elsewhere pointed out, that even minute ocular defects are
competent mischief-makers when the brain becomes what I may permit
myself, using the photographer's language, to call sensitized by
disease.
The following illustrations of success in this mode of treatment are
taken from Dr. Playfair's book:[29]
"Early in October of last year I was asked to see a lady thirty-two
years of age, with the following history. She had been married at the
age of twenty-two, and since the birth of her last child had suffered
much from various uterine troubles, described to me by her medical
attendant as 'ulceration, perimetritis, and endometritis.' Shortly after
the death of her husband, in 1876, these culminated in a pelvic abscess,
which opened first through the bladder and afterwards through the
vagina. Paralysis of the bladder immediately followed the appearance of
pus in the urine, and from that time the urine was never spontaneously
voided, and the catheter was always used. Soon after this she began to
lose power in the right leg, and then in the left, until they both
became completely paralyzed, so that she could not even move her toes,
and lay on her back with her legs slightly drawn up, the muscles being
much wasted. Towards the end of 1877, after some pain in the back of
her neck and twitching of the muscles, she began to lose power in her
left arm and in her neck, so that she lay absolutely immobile in bed,
the only part of her body she was able to move at all being her right
arm. Up to this time the pelvic abscess had continued to discharge
through the vagina, and occasionally through the bladder, but it now
ceased to do so, and there were no further symptoms referable to the
uterine organs. Her general condition, however, remained unaltered, in
spite of the most judicious medical treatment. She was seen, from time
to time, by several of our most eminent consultants, all of whom
recognized the probable hysterical character of her illness, but none of
the remedies employed had any beneficial effect. There was almost total
anorexia, the amount of food consumed was absurdly small, and the
necessary consequence of this inability to take food, combined with four
years in bed with paralysis of the greater part of the body, and the
habitual use of chloral to induce sleep, had reduced a naturally fine
woman to a mere shadow. In October, 1880, her medical attendant was good
enough to bring her to London for the purpose of giving a fair trial to
the Weir Mitchell method of treatment, with the ready co-operation of
herself and her friends, and she was conveyed on a couch slung from the
roof of a saloon carriage, so as to avoid any jolt or jar, since the
slightest movement caused much suffering. Two days after her arrival my
friend Dr. Buzzard saw her with me, and, after a careful and prolonged
electrical examination, came to the conclusion that contractility
existed in all the affected muscles, and that the paralysis was purely
functional. I could find no evidence in the pelvis of the abscess, the
uterus being perfectly mobile, and apparently healthy. After a few days'
rest the treatment was commenced on October 16, the patient being
isolated in lodgings with a nurse of my own choosing; and this was the
only difficulty I had with her, since she naturally felt acutely the
separation from the faithful attendant who had nursed her during her
long illness. Her friends agreed not to have communication with her of
any sort. It is needless to give the details of the treatment in this
and the following cases. A mere abstract will suffice to indicate the
rapid and satisfactory progress made.
Previous Page
| Next Page
|
|