The Science of Therapeutics - Classical Homeopathy Online

Full text of "The Science of Therapeutics: According to the Principles of Homeopath...Page 281 of 653ularly by coughing, and which very frequently renders even percussion painful. After the lapse of at most a week the pain disappears again entirely ; but the physical signs, of which we shaltreat by and by, sometimes remain for some time after.It is more especially the sero-plastic exudation that furnishes tpicture of an idiopathic acute pleuritis. Like all other more extsive inflammatory processes, it almost always sets in with a sevechill followed by considerable increase of the pulse and temperatattended with headache, intense thirst, loss of appetite, and almimmediately an intense pain in the inflamed region of the pleura.The pain generally decreases in proportion as the effusion increain quantity. As the exudation increases the breathing of coursebecomes shorter, and a distressing cough sometimes sets in, withthin expectoration which is tinged with blood, but is not to beregarded as a sign that pneumonia or bronchitis has supervened,but most commonly depends upon no other cause than the hypersemia of the non-affected part, which hyperjemia is a necessaryconsequence of the pressure caused by the exudation, and for thisreason does not show itself at the outset of the disease but onlyin its subsequent course. In favorable cases the termination inrecovery may commence with the second week, and may lead to acomplete restoration of health; or else, the process of reabsorpttakes place very slowly, imperfectly, and the patients remain forlong time in a sickly, lentescent condition, where they are threaened with renewed attacks and exacerbations.The third form, empyema, often develops itself, as was statedabove, from the second form. That pus is forming, may be inferredfrom the circumstance that the fever does not abate, on the contrthat in the subsequent course of the disease, and without any incof the exudation, the fever increases in violence, mingled with cor assuming the character of an hectic fever, with a constantlyincreasing prostration of strength. If the purulent exudation isconsequence of pysemia, of a septic state or a general dissolutioPleuritis, Pleurisy. 829of the blood, the exudation may originate and iiin its course witpain; it only aggravates the previously existing morbid phenomenaThe course of the disease depends essentially upon the fact wheththe exudation is re-absorbed or enclosed within a sac, or finallywhether it escapes from the cavity, and in what direction.The fourth form, where the exudation is chiefly serous, usuallyimparts to pleuritis a sub-acute or even chronic character. Thisform is very insidious, because it so often develops itself verygradually and without pain, and even commences without feverwhich does not generally supervene until at a later period. At fithe patients only complain of lassitude, they lose their appetitehave a sickly appearance. Gradually the respiration becomes moreoppressed and labored, but not by any means to a degree that mighlead the patients to suspect the presence of a pulmonary disease.The quantity of the exudation occasions a displacement of thethoracic and abdominal organs. Recovery from such attacks alwaystakes place slowly ; it is only exceptionally that absorption takplace very rapidly amid a profuse diuresis.http://www.archive.org/stream/sciencetherapeu00kafkgoog/sciencetherapeu00kafkgoog_djvu.txt