The Science of Therapeutics - Classical Homeopathy Online

Full text of "The Science of Therapeutics: According to the Principles of Homeopath...Page 337 of 653nary artery is at most somewhat louder. The changes in thearteries yield the following exceedingly characteristic phenomenaThe pulsation of the arch of the aorta is sometimes felt in thejugular. The carotids pulsate so strongly that their vibrations adistinctly seen and that the whole neck and head are sometimesshaken by the motion. A distinct murmur is likewise easily heardin the carotids in the place of a feeble second sound. The arteriat the periphery are dilated and pulsate visibly. The pulse is lahard, and bounds against the finger in a peculiarly short and rapmanner; sometimes it vibrates, especially under soft pressure.The subjective symptoms differ greatly according as the insufficiency is more or less considerable or the hypertrophic compensatmore or less complete. As long as the hypertrophy equilibrates thinsufficiency, the patients feel quite well and do not even complof palpitation, no matter how much more forcible the impulse ofthe heart may seem. But as soon as the compensating equilibriumis disturbed by an excess of hypertrophy, constitutional derangements begin to become manifest. These consist at first in moreor less violent congestions especially in the brain which, if accpanied by considerable atheromatous degeneration of the arterialwalls, easily result in rupture of the vessels and apoplexy. Attaof vertigo, luminous vibrations before the eyes, highly flushed fwith a violent throbbing sensation, throbbing headache, sleeplessness, etc., if occurring during insufficiency of the aortic valvealways unwelcome phenomena which show that the compensatingequilibrium which Nature had set up, is disturbed. In other organlikewise, -we notice a tendency to bloody extravasations, especia896 Diseases of the Heart.from the genital organs of young women. If the opposite takesplace in the course of the disease ; if the hypertrophied ventricunahle to compensate the valvular insuiSiciency, which is apt tothe case if a process of fatty degeneration is at the same time sup in the muscular tissue of the ventricle, the morbid pictureassumes an entirely difterent aspect. The vessels which had beenvery much dilated previously, now receive too scanty a supply ofblood, and, in consequence of having lost their elasticity, are neven able to completely propel this smaller quantity ; hence, symtoms of cerebral anaemia supervene, and even in the veins the blocourses more slowly. At this stage, the discharge of blood fromthe left auricle is likewise interfered with, and all the consequof stenosis of the mitral orifice develop themselves in this casealthough in a less degree and less rapidly.This shows that the prognosis of aortic insufficiency dependsgreatly upon the equilibrium between the action of the heart andimpediments to the circulation. As soon as this equilibrium isdisturbed the danger increases the more, the more considerable thdisturbance. The older the patient; the greater the probability oan extensive atheromatous degeneration of the arteries, the moreseriously is the patient's life threatened' which generally endsa sudden attack of apoplexy. If symptoms of disturbance in thepulmonary circulation supervene, the final catastrophy is undoubtedlv at hand. If valvular anomalies at other orifices are simultaneously present, our previous remarks will of course undergoconsiderable modifications.http://www.archive.org/stream/sciencetherapeu00kafkgoog/sciencetherapeu00kafkgoog_djvu.txt