Clinical Essays and Lectures Author:Howard Marsh General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1902 Original Publisher: Churchill Subjects: History / General Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-... more »Books.com where you can select from more than a million books for free. Excerpt: ON INJURIES TO JOINTS, WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO THEIR IM- MEDIATE AND REMOTE TREATMENT BY MASSAGE AND MOVEMENT. Both massage and exercises have long been known and employed in English surgery, but they have lately come into much more general use. Both, undoubtedly, are valuable remedies, and are often required ; but, if employed by rule of thumb, or as a matter of routine, and before a careful diagnosis has been made, they may do great harm. They are both forms of surgical treatment, and as such they should be employed only under adequate surgical supervision in respect to the skill and experience of those to whom they are entrusted, the duration of each sitting, the effect they are producing, and the assurance that the case in hand is undergoing no change which should interdict their continuance. When these precautions are neglected pain may be rendered severe and persistent, muscles may become irritable and spasmodic, or jaded and weak, sometimes considerably wasted, joints may become painful and over-sensitive, or there may be considerable synovial effusion. In one case a sharp attack of gout, following massage of the knee, was overlooked for some days; massage was continued to order, and the pain the patient suffered can readily be imagined. In several cases overlooked joint tuberculosis has- been rendered more active. In one instance massage and exercises were used for nine weeks in a case of" overlooked rupture of the tendo Achillis. In another a patient was handed over to a masseuse for the treatment of a hysterical knee. After m...« less