The rheumatic diseases (so called) : with original suggestions for more clearly defining them / by Hugh Lane and Charles T. Griffiths.

Date:
1890
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The rheumatic diseases (so called) : with original suggestions for more clearly defining them / by Hugh Lane and Charles T. Griffiths. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    The tissues being rendered more acid than was their wont, would therefore in all probability ex- hibit theii' newly acquired character (as they do), sooner or later, in this rheumatic way. It has been observed clinically by us, over and over again, that where rheumatism presents itself in a patient suffering from, plumbism, and where plumbism seems to have been the cause of it, this plumbism has never been severe. It appears as though the reaction which had taken place in the first instance, had done so at the expense of neutralising the metal in the tissues, rendering it comparatively inert in so far as the plumbism went; but, on the other hand, increased the ten- dency to acidification, and therefore to rheuma- tism, as evidences have shown. One good feature of the rheumatism so induced is that it seldom shows any tendency to take on an acute action, as it starts in a chronic manner, and it attacks in a slow desultory sort of way, and rarely runs on to a severe crippling form. The other causes of rheumatism are well recognised; we will there- fore now proceed to consider the disease in its varieties, and we shall treat it under two headings, A and 13.