Peripheral neuritis in acute rheumatism and the relation of muscular atrophy to affections of the joints / by Judson S. Bury.

  • Bury, Judson Sykes.
Date:
1888
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Peripheral neuritis in acute rheumatism and the relation of muscular atrophy to affections of the joints / by Judson S. Bury. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    AND THE RELATION OF MUSCULAR ATROPHY TO AFFECTIONS OF THE JOINTS * >»< The main object of my paper to-night is to bring before your notice certain phenomena which are frequently met with during or subsequent to a genuine attack of articular rheumatism, and yet which are not described in text books on medicine, and are but imperfectly alluded to in special monographs on rheiunatism. The phenomena are paralysis and atrophy of muscles, anaesthesia in the course of peripheral nerves, and occasionally, enlargement of the ends of bones. As atrophy of muscle is by far the commonest of these symptoms, and has long been noticed also in other affections of the joints, it will be more convenient first to consider the nature of this general relation, and then after a study and analysis of certain clinical features in rheumatic cases, we shall be in a position to discuss how far the element, common both to rheumatism and to other articular affections, whether injuries or diseases—viz., joint disturbance, is responsible in rheumatism for the wasting of muscles; or how far we may conclude, from any peculiar features of the atrophy, or from its association with other phenomena, that in rheumatism there are other factors at work equally potent with the joint irritation to set up wasting of muscle tissue. The fact that any inflammation of a joint is almost invariably attended with rapid wasting of the muscles that move the joint, was first definitely described by John Hunter, iidSiQ. He recognised, too, that the atrophy is not the result of default of movement, for he says, when the other limb is examined, it is seen that the muscles there have preserved their volume almost entirely, although they have not been more moved than the muscles of the diseased limb. Hunter also noted that the muscles were sometimes paralysed, even when they were not atrophied. • Read before the Manchester Medical Society, May 2, 1888.