SYMPTOMS OF DISEASES 25 



open and cold air. It may also be brought on by violent exertion of the voica 

 and by suppressed evacuations. Remedy, pages 99, 154. 



RHEUMATISM. — Symptoms. — A painful affection of fibrous and mus- 

 cular tissues, affecting principally the larger joiuts, and places covered by 

 muscles; thus it affects the wrists, the elbows, the knees and hip- joint, and the 

 back and loins. The internal parts also, as the heart and diaphragm, are con- 

 sidered to be capable of being affected by rheumatism. "When the joints about 

 the back and loins are affected, the complaint is called lumbago; when the pain 

 is in tlie hip joint, it is called sciatica; and pleurodyne, or pain in the side, 

 when the muscles of the cliest are affected. Rheumatism may occur either 

 with fever or without it; in the first case it is termed acute, and in the second 

 chronic rheumatism. 



Not long after the application of the exciting cause, the patient feels pain 

 and stiffness in one or more joints when he attempts to move them; this quickly 

 increases, till motion becomes almost impossible, from the excessive pain 

 attending it. Along with this local, and often very general .pain, there occurs 

 very strong fever, much thirst,heat, and dryness of skin, strength, fullness, and 

 hardness of pulse. The tongue has a white coating, but is red at the tip and 

 the sides, and there is often profuse perspiration with a very sour smell. Tho 

 appetite is deficient, but the bowels are often in their natural condition. Tho 

 feverish symptoms are somewhat increased towards evening; and when the 

 patient gets warm in bed, the pains are more severe. In a short time some of 

 the joints swell, and the pain is a little relieved, but by no means removed. The 

 pain is apt to shift from one joint to another, or at least several joints in suc- 

 cession are attacked; and wlien the pain seemed to be going off, it sometimes 

 unexpectedly recurs. 



Causes. — Rlieumatisra is a disease cf the constitution, and depends on a 

 morbid state of the blood, or, to speak mora accurately, it is caused by a poison 

 which circuhites In tlie blood, and is probably caiTied from one joint to another 

 Tlje tendency to rheumatism is hereditary, and in some families this predis 

 position is very marked, and the disease is excited by the most trilling causes. 

 Cold and damp are the most common causes of this disease, and hence the pool 

 suffer much from it. Thus, too, it is not an unfrequent disease with sportsmen, 

 wiio,wii£ii liot uuii perspiring, are too apt to throw themselves down on the we* 

 grass; and with travellers who sleep in damp and ill-dried sheets. Persons who get 

 their clothes wet, and neglect to<;hange them, are often seized with rheumatism. 

 Acute rheumatism is most common between the ages of fifteen and forty. It 

 is not a dangerous disease as long as it is confined to the joints, but there is 

 always the risk of the heart being attacked; a most dangerous complication, 

 and most to be dreaded when the disease has long existed, and when there is a 

 strong hereditary predisposition to it Remedy, pages 33, 30, 37, 88, 38, 

 41, 42, 141. 



RICKETS.— %OTp<<wis.— This disease is an affection peculiar to child- 

 tiood, and supposed to depend upon the action of the causes which favor the 

 development of scrofula. The signs of rickets are, a softened gristly state of 

 the bones, large joints, large head, prominent forehead, straightness of the riba 



