Diseases of the joints - 1886 Author:Howard Marsh Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: and the form of joint disease met with in association with it accords with that which is developed in the progress of ordinary pyaemia. As in other instances ... more »of pyaemic infection, so it is here, that both in the severity of the general symptoms and in the degree in which the joints suffer, great differences present themselves. Sometimes the pyao- mic attack is acute, and rapidly destroys life, many joints are involved, and become quickly disorganised, and even the articular ends of the bones may be necrosed. On other occasions, pyaemic infection is of slight intensity, and the joint affection runs a mild though a prolonged course, and ends in firm fibrous anchylosis. Often only the knee is attacked. The affection does not call for any detailed description. All the main points concerning it, and the treatment required, are alluded to under the head of pyaemia. I need only add that the interior of the uterus must be maintained as far as possible in a healthy condition, so that no further absorption of septic material may occur; a weak solution of iodine, one part of the tincture in two or three hundred parts of water, being perhaps the best and safest injection that can be employed for this purpose. With this or some other disinfectant, the uterus should be irrigated twice or three times a day. CHAPTER IIL GOUT. Gout is a constitutional malady, in which the joints tend to become attacked by a form of inflammation associated with the deposit of urate of soda. These gouty inflammations may be either acute or cLronic;they are generally chronic, with acute and severe exacerbations. The changes that take place in the articulations are briefly as follows : In any acute attack, the synovia! membrane presents appearances identical with Fig. 2.—Irregular Deposit of Urate of...« less