Erasmus Darwin

“ When these new vessels are formed, if they are not reabsorbed into the circulation, they secrete a new fluid called purulent matter; which generally opens itself a passage on the external skin, and produces an ulcer, which either gradually heals, or spreads, and is the cause of hectic fever; or they secrete contagious matter, which has the property of exciting the same kind of inflammation, and of producing the same kind of contagious matter, when inserted by inoculation into the skin of other persons. ”

“ When the patient is much reduced, opium in very small doses may be given, as a quarter of a grain, as recommended in pleurisy. If the pain suddenly ceases, and the patient continues to vomit up whatever is given him, it is generally fatal; as it indicates, that a mortification of the bowel is already formed. Some authors have advised to join cathartic medicines with an opiate in inflammation of the bowels, as recommended in colica saturnina. ”

“ At other times it is attended with strong and full pulse like other inflammations of internal membranes. Can the seat of the disease being higher or lower in the intestinal canal, that is, above or below the valve of the colon, produce this difference of pulse by the greater sympathy of one part of the bowels with the stomach than another? In enteritis with strong pulse the pain is great about the navel, with vomiting, and the greatest difficulty in procuring a stool. In the other, the pain and fever is less, without vomiting, and with diarrhœa. ”

“ But when this cold fit or torpor of these membranes, or ligaments or muscles of the back, is succeeded by a hot fit, and consequent inflammation, a violent inflammatory fever, with great pain, occurs, preventing the erect posture of the body; and the affected part is liable to suppurate, in which case a very dangerous ulcer is formed, and a part of one of the vertebrae is generally found carious, and the patient sinks after a long time under the hectic fever occasioned by the aerated or oxygenated matter. ”

“ Others have received injury, where inflammation has been beginning, by the universal practice of giving a large dose of opium immediately on delivery, without any indication of its propriety; which, though a proper and useful medicine, where the patient is too feeble, when given in a small dose, as 10 drops of tincture of opium, or half a grain of solid opium, must do a proportionate injury, when it is given improperly ”

“ There is however a slighter species of inflammation of this viscus, and perhaps of all others, which is unattended by much fever; and which is sometimes induced by drinking cold water, or eating cold insipid food, as raw turnips, when the person has been much heated and fatigued by exercise. For when the sensorial power has been diminished by great exertion, and the stomach has become less irritable by having been previously stimulated by much heat, it sooner becomes quiescent by the application of cold. ”

“ Great heat is produced from the new chemical combinations arising in the secretion of new fibres, and great pain from the distention of old ones, or from their increased action. The increased quantity of sensation from a topical inflammation or phlegmon is the immediate cause of the febris sensitiva irritata, or inflammatory fever; as when it arises from the pain of pleurisy, or paronychia; but generally an irritative fever precedes this topical inflammation, which occurs during the hot fit of it ”

“ The other kind of nephritis, or inflammation of the interior part of the kidney, generally arises from the pain occasioned by the stimulus of a stone entering the ureter from the pelvis of the kidney; and, which ceases when the stone is protruded forwards into the bladder; or when it is returned into the pelvis of the kidney by the retrograde action of the ureter. The kidney is nevertheless inflamed more frequently, though in a less degree, from other causes ”

“ After the patient is greatly debilitated, so that no further evacuation can be admitted, and the difficult breathing and cough continue, I have given four or five drops of tincture of opium, that is, about a quarter of a grain of solid opium, with great advantage, and I believe in several cases I have saved the patient. A greater quantity of opium in this state of debility cannot be used without hazarding the life of the person. ”

“ Those animals, which are furnished with clavicles, or collar-bones, not only use their foremost feet as hands, as men, monkies, cats, mice, squirrels, &c. but elevate their ribs in respiration as well as depress the diaphragm for the purpose of enlarging the cavity of the chest. Hence an inflammation of the diaphragm is sudden death to those animals, as horses and dogs, which can only breaths by depressing the diaphragm ”

“ The extension of the old vessels seems rather a consequence than a cause of the germination, or pullulation, of these new ones; for the old vessels may be enlarged, and excited with unusual energy, without any production of new ones, as in the blush of shame or of anger. ”

“ When the inflammation begins to decline, after due evacuation any stimulating material put into the eye increases the absorption, which soon removes the new red vessels; which has given rise to a hundred famous eye-waters, and eye-doctors; if these stimulating materials are used too soon, the inflammation is increased by them. ”

“ C. a lady in the last month of her pregnancy, was seized with violent hepatitis, with symptoms both of peripneumony and of pleurisy, for it seldom happens in violent inflammations, that one viscus alone is affected; she wanted then about a fortnight of her delivery, and after frequent venesection, with gentle cathartics, with fomentation or warm bath, she recovered and was safely delivered, and both herself and child did well. Rheumatic and eruptive fevers are more liable to induce abortion. ”

“ Inflammation of the bowels sometimes is owing to extraneous indigestible substances, as plum-stones, especially of the damasin, which has sharp ends. Sometimes to an introsusception of one part of the intestine into another, and very frequently to a strangulated hernia or rupture. ”

“ When the sanguiferous system is full of blood, the absorbents cannot act so powerfully, as the progress of their contents is opposed by the previous fulness of the blood-vessels; whence stimulants in that case increase the action of the secerning system more than of the absorbent one ”

“ It is a very frequent and dangerous disease, as the production of matter more readily takes place in it than in any other viscus. The consequence of which, after a hard labour, is probably the puerperal fever, and in scrophulous habits a fatal purulent fever, or hopeless consumption.
M. M. Venesection. Warm bath. Emollient clysters.
10. Gastritis. In inflammation of the stomach the pulse is generally soft, probably occasioned by the sickness which attends it. The pain and heat of the stomach is increased by whatever is swallowed, with immediate rejection of it. ”

“ These contagious matters form ulcers, which either heal spontaneously, or by art; or continue to spread, and destroy the patient, by other kinds of hectic fever.
In this genus there is an increase of the sensorial power of irritation as well as of sensation; whence great arterial energy is produced, and the pulse becomes strong and full, as well as quick; and the coats of the arteries feel hard under the finger, being themselves thickened and distended by inflammation. The blood drawn, especially at the second bleeding, is covered with a tough size ”

“ Hence opium given in the commencement of inflammatory diseases destroys the patient; and cures them, if given in very small doses at the end of inflammatory diseases.
7. Carditis. Inflammation of the heart is attended with unequal intermitting pulse, palpitation, pain in the middle of the sternum, and constant vomiting. It cannot certainly be distinguished from peripneumony, and is perhaps always combined with it. ”

“ M. M. Venesection. Cathartics. Diluents. Torpentia. Frequently moisten the eye with cold water by means of a rag. Cool airy room. Darkness. When the inflammation begins to decline, white vitriol gr. vi. in an ounce of water is more efficacious to moisten the eye than solutions of lead. Tincture of opium diluted. New vessels from the inflamed tunica adnata frequently spread like a fly's wing upon the transparent cornea, which is then called Pterigium. To stop the growth of this, the principal vessels should be cut through with a lancet. ”