Medical Comentaries Author:ANDREW DUNCAN General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1785 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-Books.com where you can select from more than a million book... more »s for free. Excerpt: VI, Recherches fur la maladie convulftve epldemique attribue par quelques obfervateurs a I'Ergot, et confondue avec la gangrene feche de Solognots. Par M. Saillant. Vide Hijioire de la Saciete Royals de Medecine. Tom. i. 4/0. Paris. IN the memoir before us, the author fets out with obferving, that the experiments undertaken by the Society, to determine whether the ergot rye be capable of producing dry gangrene, or not, agreed with the obfervations of Langi- us, Perrault, Dodart, and others; but that, on the other hand, there are many refpeftable authorities which exculpate the ergot or fpurred rye, and refer to other caufes the difeafe which has been attributed to it in Germany and Sweden. To clear up this matter, Mr Saillant has compared together the authors who have written upon the fubject. He finds, that they do not agree with regard to the caufe of the difeafe ; but that its progrefs and fymptoms are eflentially different from thofe of the dry gangrene. To prove this, inin the paper before us, be gives a detail of the fy mptoms of each of tlicfc difeafes; and to this he fubjoins an hiftorical vieV of the progrefs of the convulfive epidemic of Sweden and Germany, the caufe of which is not yet entirely determined. The dry gangrene is characterized, he ob- ferves, by the mortification of fame one of the extremities, fametimes of all of them. Often it is preceded by a rednefs, which, however, is not inflammatory, and by fome vefications. The limb fwclls, becomes painful, and has a fen- fation fometimes of cold, more frequently of un- fupportable heat. The veflels are obliterated, the phlegm become...« less