DISEASES OF THE ORGANS OF LOCOMOTION. 



IN the present section we would briefly call attention to all the 

 diseases of the joints, bones, or muscles coming within the reach of in- 

 ternal remedies, whether they be idiopathic affections of these organs, 

 or the prominent symptoms of constitutional disease, of a cachexia or 

 dyscrasia. 



RHEUMATISM. 



The series of morbid processes which were formerly grouped to- 

 gether as rheumatism has grown smaller, it is true ; all those dis- 

 eases of the mucous membrane, and in the parenchymatous organs, 

 which were formerly called rheumatism, have been excluded; and 

 we have also ceased to designate as rheumatic those cases of in- 

 flammation of the pleura, pericardium, and peritonaeum, referrible to 

 cold, or for which we can find no cause ; but still the number and 

 variety of morbid processes classed under the head of rheumatism are 

 sufficient to render a precise definition of the term impossible. 



We may mention the following points as characteristic of the forms 

 of disease at present considered as rheumatic : 1. The seat of the dis- 

 ease in the fibrous tissues, the joints, aponeuroses, sheaths of the ten- 

 dons, neurilemma, periosteum, or in the muscles and tendons ; 2. The 

 painfulness of the affection, which is due in many, probably hi all cases, 

 to stretching of and pressure on the elements of the tissue by the di- 

 lated capillaries and an inflammatory oedema ; 3. The absence of trau- 

 matic causes and a kind of independent occurrence of the disease, that 

 is, its independence of other acute and chronic diseases. I think that 

 the negative description given in 3 is more distinctive than a posi- 

 tive one would be in its place, which would perhaps refer the origin 

 of the affection to catching cold and to atmospheric influences. Fre- 

 quently as catching cold and atmospheric influence lead to rheuma- 

 tism, it is not at all proved that they are its sole cause. In practice, 

 all painful inflammatory affections of the above-named tissues that oo 



