RHEUMATISM

From Agepedia

RHEUMATISM; a disease attended with sharp pains, which has so much resemblance to the gout, that some physician* have considered it as not an entirely distinct disease; although they are by no means to be confounded. (Bee Govt.) Rheumatism is distinguished into acute and chronic. The former is of short continuance, and either shifting to different parts of the body or confined to a particular part: in the latter case, it has a tendency to pass into the chronic, unless properly attended to: it is often attended with fever, or sometimes comes on in the train of a fever. This combination of rheumatism with fever is called rheumatic fever, which is considered by physicians a distinct species. Chronic rheumatism is attended with pains in the head, shoulders, knees, and other large joints, which, at times, are confined to one particular part, and at others shift from one joint to another, without occasioning any fever; and in this manner the complaint continues often for a considerable time, and at length goes off. No danger is attendant on chronic rheumatism ; but a person having been once attacked with it, is ever afterwards more or less liable to returns of it. Neither is the acute rheumatism frequently accompanied with much danger. The acute is preceded by shivering, heat, thirst, and frequent pulse ; after which the pain commences, and soon fixes on the joints. The chronic rheumatism is distinguished by pain in the joints, without fever, and is divided into three species; lumbago, affecting the loins; sciatica, affecting the hip; and arthrodynia, or pains in the joints. The acute rheumatism mostly terminates in one of these species. Rheumatism may arise at all times of the year, when there are frequent vicissitudes of the weather from heat to cold, but the spring and autumn are the seasons in which it is most prevalent; and it attacks persons of all ages; but very young people are less subject to it than adults. Obstructed perspiration, occasioned either by wearing wet clothes, lying in damp linen, or damp rooms, or by being exposed to cool air when the body has been much heated by exercise, is the cause which usually produces rheumatism. Those who are much afflicted with this complaint, are very apt to be sensible of the approach of wet weather, by finding wandering pains about them at that period. Rheumatism usually attacks only the external muscular parts, but has sometimes been known to affect the internal parts, especially the serous membranes, the pleura, the peritonceum, the dura mater.