Spasm

Spasm is a nervous disease in which muscles move towards their origin and resist stretching. In some cases they remain in this position and no longer stretch, and sometimes they stretch again easily, as happens with yawning and hiccups.

The cause of the spasm is either matter or some other cause not related to matter, such as warmth or dryness. The matter during spasm is most often mucous, but sometimes it is bloody, and sometimes black gall. This happens with muscle tumors, when the matter causing the tumor spreads in the spaces between the threads of the nerves, and the nerves expand in width and their length decreases.

With any spasm caused by matter, the active matter either covers the entire muscle - this happens with a spasm without a tumor - or it is formed only in one place of the muscle, and its other parts follow it, as happens in a spasm due to a tumor arising from -for the outpouring of matter as a result of a bruise, rupture or any other cause causing swelling. It is quite possible that there are spasms that occur due to thick, heaving winds. I believe that such spasms are common and go away immediately.

Spasms caused by matter often arise from the movement of matter, as happens after tonsillitis and after pleurisy and sarsam.

As for the spasm due to the lack of matter and moisture and the predominance of dryness, it happens that the muscles contract both in length and width; they seem to be fried and compressed, like skin that has been brought to the fire. You know that tendons contract in winter from being wet, and in summer they contract from drying out; The same is true with nerves.

Spasms not connected with matter sometimes occur as a result of some irritating cause, from which the nerves seem to flee and at the same time contract to repel it. Such a cause is, for example, pain caused by something painful - it often arises from hot burning juice - or a poisonous quality reaching the brain and nerves, as happens to a person who has been bitten on the nerve by a scorpion, or a non-poisonous quality , when a spasm occurs, for example, from strong cooling, compressing and compacting the nerves and muscles, which are pulled together, tending to their origin.

Just as the relaxation of organs varies depending on where the nerves begin, so spasms also occur.

There are different ones. The judgment of both is the same when relaxation or spasm occurs below the neck, in front, behind or on the side, and also above the neck.

In wet spasms associated with congestion, the main cause is either moisture and cold, which cause the moisture to thicken and harden so that the muscles cannot stretch, or dryness and warmth, which promotes excessive absorption of moisture. The matter of spasm forms precisely a spasm, and does not relax, for the reason that it is thick and penetrates into the matter of nerve fibers, not spreading freely and usefully, but as if squeezing into a gap.

A spasm is like an epileptic seizure of a separate organ, just as an epileptic seizure is a spasm of the whole body; the difference between them is in universality and in particular. Most often, epileptic seizures resolve quickly; they occur periodically or non-periodically and have other distinctive features that you know.

Wet spasms sometimes occur in nursing women due to the proximity of the breasts to the tendons, their moistening with milk and the milk congealing in them; it sometimes occurs in drunk people. Such spasms also occur in children due to the dampness of their nature. Most often they occur in children with acute fevers, constipation of the stomach, insomnia and when they cry a lot. Children have spasms during fevers, even when the fevers are mild. In general, children quickly fall into spasms due to the weakness of the strength of their brain and organs and the weakness of their muscles, but they just as easily come out of this state, since their liver and heart are strong. Moreover, their juices are not so unruly and not very thick; Therefore, children quickly recover from dry cramps due to the moisture of their nature and the moisture of the food they take. But for adults, both things don’t happen easily.

Sometimes children, after acute fevers, begin to have bad spasms, accompanied by symptoms that we will discuss below. Children are rarely saved from this. However, after the seventh year, children suffer from spasms only during very severe fevers.

Spasms can also occur from fear, and the reason for this is this: the pneuma spreading throughout the body suddenly goes deeper, followed by the muscles, moving to their origin, and freeze in this position.

Sometimes spasms also occur from the fact that a person leans on one or another organ when the organ is in a bent position; then matter pours into the organ and becomes locked in it, since it is in a bent position. Often spasms occur as a result of a blow that produces the same effect, or from lifting heavy objects, or after sleeping on hard bedding, but all this goes away on its own. Such rigor sometimes covers an organ due to the overflow of matter pouring into it, which pushes back the moving pneuma and does not allow it to penetrate the organ, so that extension movement becomes impossible. When the force returns to the organ and breaks the matter, it unbends. The same thing is sometimes observed when straightening the arms or legs; this often happens after sleep, upon awakening, when the contracted parts of the body do not stretch out, for the pneuma during sleep is also less active and does not so persistently force the bent part of the body to stretch out, since it itself tends to go inward.

As for dry cramps, they sometimes begin after taking laxative medications - this is very bad - or after each bowel movement. They also appear after burning fevers, especially fevers during sarsam, and after strong physical and mental movements - insomnia, grief and fear; Such spasms are rarely relieved. Sometimes the spasms that occur during fevers are not very malignant. Such spasms begin because fever causes matter to flow into the nerves and muscles, especially if the body is overloaded with juices. Often spasms occur with the participation of the mouth of the stomach, and they are eliminated by vomiting. These types of spasms that occur during fevers are not very severe or malignant. Only those spasms that occur during burning fevers and sarsam are severe and malignant, for they dry out the nerves and muscles and, as it were, fry the brain. Spasms during prolonged fevers are just as painful; they also dry out the nerves, muscles and even the brain, destroy natural moisture and cause spasms.

There are also dry spasms that begin and go away quickly; their cause is dryness of the brain, due to its weakness, and subsequent drying out of the nerves. After all, if the brain experiences the slightest drying effect, it extracts moisture from the nerves and spinal cord and the nerves contract; then, when nature takes care to supply the brain with a sufficient amount of moisture, the organs again, albeit with difficulty, submit to extension. Just as spasms begin from strong external cold, they can also arise as a result of the cold nature of the brain and the complicity of the muscles with it.

The spasms that cause suffering are spasms that arise from dryness. Among the spasms that arise from dryness are spasms accompanied by the solidification of moisture, which decreases in volume and becomes very thick; in this case, a spasm occurs in the organ, as happens from extreme cold or after the patient drinks a drug that causes numbness, for example, opium.

As for spasms due to some influence irritating the brain, an example of this is the spasms in a person who has taken harbak; harbak causes spasms after relaxation - due to dryness; spasms can also occur before relaxation, for the harbak is opposed to nature and is poisonous; therefore it greatly irritates the nerves and the nerves contract. This category also includes spasms in a person who has vomited juice the color of verdigris, irritating the mouth of the stomach, spasms due to the great sensitivity of the mouth of the stomach, to which bile rushes, as well as spasms that occur when the brain is involved in diseases of the uterus, bladder and other organs , or spasms that occur after a scorpion, tarantula or snake bite that has struck a nerve, or from cutting and corroding nerves, or due to diseases of the stomach, uterus and other organs rich in nerves. Cramps due to intestinal worms are also close to this.

Bad spasms include spasms that affect only the lips, eyelids and tongue; it is known that their cause lies in the brain itself.

If the body bends forward during spasms, then the spasms occur in the anterior muscles, and if it bends backwards, this indicates spasms in the posterior muscles; when the body bends in both directions, it means that the disease has affected both muscle groups, as happens with paralysis. Sometimes the spasms are so strong that they cramp the patient’s neck and clench their teeth.

For anyone who dies from spasms, the body remains hot for some time after death, since spasms, while killing, suffocate; they kill by causing suffocation, because spasms affect the respiratory muscles and their movements stop.

Any spasm that appears after a wound is fatal; most often it serves as a sign of approaching death.

Signs. The pulse of those affected by spasms is tense and uneven at the site of the spasm, it rises and falls, like an arrow flying from a bow. The movements of his strikes are also uneven in terms of speed and slowness. The vessels of the reduced organs are hotter than the vessels of other organs. The body of the vessels narrows, just as they narrow during chills, but in a different way than during compression, and not in the same way as happens when the vessels harden due to a long illness or with pain in the viscera. No, it's more like a narrowing of parts of the intestine that is being pulled from both ends. We will talk about the signs of pain during spasms a little below.

As for spasms from overflow, a sign of them is the suddenness of their appearance and the fact that the sore spot does not quickly absorb the oil smeared on it, unless it has been warmed shortly before. Spasms from dryness begin gradually and occur after diseases associated with bowel movements, whatever these diseases may be, or after bowel movements with the help of medicines during Hyde or after spontaneous bowel movements.

Spasms due to irritation of the brain are recognized by an external cause and by the fact that the patient has drunk opium, harbuck and the like, and if the suffering comes from the stomach and the brain and then the nerves are involved with it, then before the spasms there is nausea, melancholy and compression of the stomach, all this often occurs during spasms; sometimes such spasms begin after vomiting the color of leek or verdigris. The same is true for spasms that arise due to the great sensitivity of the mouth of the stomach; whenever matter is poured there, a person experiences spasms, but this is preceded by a feeling of irritation and burning at the mouth of the stomach. Sometimes this kind of spasm begins as a result of increased disease of the uterus, bladder and other organs; in this case, before the onset of spasms, severe pain and obvious damage to this organ are observed, while with other types of spasms there is either no pain or the pain arises from spasms, and not spasms from pain.

As for spasms due to a tumor, this can be recognized by the signs that we have already discussed.

One of the signs accompanying the occurrence of spasms is a small and rare pulse, and then its transition to the quality mentioned above. In most cases, the face turns red, the eyes begin to squint and deviate to the side, breathing becomes intermittent and heavy; sometimes causeless laughter appears, nature closes up and dries up. Urine is also retained in most cases, and sometimes it is not retained, but comes out like the watery part of the blood and bubbles. The patient experiences hiccups, insomnia, headache, shaking, pain under the neck joint between the shoulder blades, as well as in the joints of the lower back, tailbone and below.

An indication of spasms arising due to fever, or a harbinger of it during fevers, is deviation of the eyes to the side, redness of the extremities, squint, gnashing of teeth, blackening of the tongue, tension of the skin on the head, beating in the temples and in the vessels of the head, as well as the urine first comes out red, and then, due to the rise of matter in the head, it becomes colorless. The abdomen often becomes dry or wrinkled. Hippocrates says: The appearance of fever after spasms is better than the appearance of spasms after fever. This means that if fever occurs during wet spasms, it resolves the spasms, but spasms resulting from fever are dry spasms, which rarely respond to treatment. Before this, fears appear in a dream, the complexion turns red, then green and gray, and the nature becomes bound. Purulent urine during fever and goose bumps, accompanied by sweating of the head and darkening of the eyes, foreshadow spasms caused by an abscess in the viscera. If during cramps there is a fever, but it is not so strong and prolonged as to burn the moisture or disperse it throughout the body, then the cramps belong to the category in which there is no such significant dryness. One of the bad signs of wet spasms is an increase in the winds in the organs, especially when the stomach is swollen and, even more so, if this occurs at the beginning of the disease. Acute urine with spasms and muscle tension is a bad sign, indicating that the cause of the disease is pure warmth.

If the spasm is accompanied by painful beating in the insides or twitching, then this is also a bad sign, because beating means one of two things: either there is a tumor in the insides that increases the beating, or emaciation of the insides; At the same time, a large pulse appears, characteristic of a strongly beating vessel.

If the matter of the sore throat, moving, deviates towards the nerves and causes spasms, then this is indicated by the appearance of spasmodicity in the pulse. And if the matter of pleurisy deviates there, then a sign of this is severe difficulty breathing and the fact that the fever is not very significant. When sarsama matter deviates towards the nerves, the disease begins with frequent blinking and gnashing of teeth, then the eyes begin to squint, the neck crooks and spasms begin.

Treatment. For cramps from a bruise, you should use a muscle relaxant watering made from barley gruel, chamomile, marshmallow, fenugreek flour and the like. In the general rules, we have already said which place should be watered. As for spasms due to irritation of the brain, if they are caused by taking something poisonous, they are treated with the means that you will learn about in the paragraphs on poisons. If they are caused by a fever, then they are treated by abundantly moisturizing the brain, nerves and muscles with the highly moisturizing ointments already known to you, and the patient must constantly be in a cool room. And when spasms occur from pain, then it should be calmed, having first found out what this pain is, and thus stop the cause of the spasms. If the spasms are caused by a bite, they should be treated as we will say in the paragraph on bites. In case of spasms from tumors, they are treated as we will say in the paragraph on the treatment of tumors, I want to say nerve tumors.

Spasms caused by dryness are difficult to treat; the most suitable treatment is baths followed by lubrication with moisturizing oils; This treatment should be repeated several times, using it only if there is no fever and the oil does not have to be warmed at all. Treatment should apply to all joints. If it is possible to arrange a milk bath, then they do it, but if not, then they take water in which willow leaves, intestines, violets, water lilies, pumpkin and cucumber were boiled. A bath is also prepared from the squeezed juice of pumpkin, or kissa, or from rose water in which any of these substances have been boiled, or from watermelon juice, willow juice and similar juices. If you give such a patient an enema of the mentioned squeezed juices, oils and moisturizing oily decoctions, it will be very useful.

The joints and bases of the muscles are lubricated with oils, constantly causing perspiration; at the same time, you need to take very careful care of the brain and moisturize it with the means that we taught you when talking about moisturizing the brain. The patient should be given fresh milk in a fair amount if there is no fever; They also give barley water, pumpkin and watermelon juice and julab, regardless of whether there is a fever or not. If you add a little weak white wine to these liquids so that they penetrate better to the nerves, it will be good; A little wine is also added to plain water. This treatment should be applied continuously, without moving the patient or prescribing physical exercise.

If it is possible to immerse the patient’s entire body in warm oil, then this is done. Inject moisturizing oils and squeezed juices into his nose, and moisturize his head with moisturizers already known to you; At night he should take plantain and rose oil. Some useful remedies for such patients include taking camel thorn manna; it especially helps infants, and if it is impossible to give them this medicine, they are given water by a nurse. If the strength of a person suffering from wet spasms is weak, then one should not forbid him from eating meat, but one should give meat that is dry in nature, such as the meat of sparrows, mountain partridges, larks and steppe partridges. If the patient’s strength is not weak, then his food is bread with honey, pea water with dill and mustard, as well as murri with olive oil. Let them put black pepper in what they eat.

As for the nutrition of those suffering from dry cramps, the food for them is everything that moisturizes and softens, all sorts of softening and fatty stews prepared from barley water, almond oil and good sugar, as well as meat juice extracted from the meat of lambs and kids, sometimes moisturizing vegetables are placed in it,  which eliminate the harmful effects of meat when there is heat. If you add a little wine to the juice so that it penetrates better to the nerves, this will not be far from good, especially when the heat is not excessive; It is also good to add wine to the water that such patients drink.

And with regard to the treatment of wet spasms, I will say that they must be treated through strong stools and cleansings, mentioned when we were talking about the secretion of thick juice from the nerves, and carried out by laxatives and acute enemas. When you see that the signs of predominance of blood are quite clear, then let the blood first, especially if the cause of the overflow is the excessive drinking of wine, but do not remove the entire amount of blood that would be required to be removed by bloodletting in case of spasms or any other disease requiring removal blood, but on the contrary, leave a certain amount of it to resist spasms; this blood will be absorbed under the absorbing action of movements during spasms.

Therapeutic measures also include immersing the patient in water from hot springs and sitting in olive oil in which a fox or hyena was boiled, which we will also mention in the chapter on joint pain; it is very useful. It is also useful to lubricate the patient with hyena fat and iris oil if there is no fever; A decoction of puppies, sitting in water in which such thinning potions as yarrow santolinum, sati leaves, bay leaves and fragrant reed have been boiled, is also helpful, thick ointments prepared from the roots of the Judas thorn, spotted milk thistle seeds, Egyptian thorn seeds and squeezed juice are also useful thin centaury; Each medicine is used individually or in combination.

Know that a long stay in a bath, whether it contains water or anything else, harms such patients, weakening their strength; replace the length of time with repetition and put them in the bath twice a day.

Among the useful remedies for patients suffering from a general spasm called thatalis or tamadduo - both of which come from matter - include, as Hippocrates says, sudden immersion in cold water; at the same time, the outer surface of the body becomes denser, the innate heat, being locked inside, intensifies and dissolves matter. However, not every body can bear this without harm, but only a strong, young, fleshy one, on which there are no ulcers, and even then only in the summer. Many have recovered from this.

Place jars in the place where parts of the tendons stretch, without cutting, if the disease is mild; otherwise you have to make an incision, and if you don’t make it, you can damage it by attracting matter. The best places for cupping: the back of the head, the back - on both sides of the vertebrae - and the parts of the chest that are abundant with muscles; As for the area of ​​the front of the bladder and the kidney area, we only put cups there if we are afraid and afraid that blood may come out in the urine. You should not place many cans at the same time: you need to watch the place where the cans are placed and protect it from cooling, otherwise you can catch a cold throughout your body.

Treatment measures also include careful straightening of the organ affected by spasm; The remedy that occurs naturally is the appearance of acute fever, which is why Hippocrates said that the appearance of fever after spasms is better than the appearance of spasms after fever. Quadrennial fever helps by shaking the body with chills and causing profuse sweat; Those who suffer from four-day fever are rarely affected by spasms, because fever provides protection against spasms.

One of the amazing and proven measures for spasms is applying a sheep's tail to the organ affected by the spasm. It is left there until it starts to stink, and then replaced with another fat tail.

When there is a spasm common to the whole body, it is very useful to direct the treatment also to the brain, clearing it with sneezing-inducing drugs; The following remedy has been tested on such patients: a necklace made of very soft wool is hung around their neck and every now and then it is sprinkled with some hot oil. A dry bath also helps them a lot; It is also useful to sit leaning over a hot stone, which is sprinkled with wine, or to sweat, wrapped in a blanket.

Good medicinal dressings include a plaster prepared from liquid styrax, furbiyune, beaver stream, yellow wax and iris oil, as well as plasters mentioned in the Pharmacopoeia, various fats and other means. This also includes smearing the grounds with sesame oil and flaxseed oil; as well as fenugreek mucilage. A good poultice for such patients is heated salt, which is applied to the site where the nerves exit.

Medicines that cause fever if given to such patients to drink are beaver stream and asafoetida gum mixed with honey in the amount of one javza; they bring on fever, and the fever immediately resolves the spasms. Castor oil, honey-sweetened water with asafoetida, and a decoction of balsam tree grains also work.

It is very useful for such patients to take teriyak and potent medicinal tests; sometimes the use of diuretics also helps; The following medicine has been tested: take twenty dirhams of cotton roots and boil them in two ritls of water until one third remains, this decoction is drunk warm, four uqiyas with two dirhams of almond oil; this is useful, especially for spasms that pull the body back. Sometimes, instead of cotton roots, they boil balsam tree grains in the amount of ten dirhams and drink three uqiyas; Wild pulegium mint works the same way.

One of the very useful remedies is taking opopanax, and a strong patient is given one mithqal to drink it, a moderate one - a dirham, and a weak one - about a quarter of a dirham. At this time, you need to watch your stomach, because opopanax makes the stomach very relaxed. The same is the effect of asafoetida mixed in the amount of one kirsanna with four and a half ukiyas of honey, or the effect of ushshak. Sometimes all this is drunk with a decoction of hyssop or a decoction of stinking ferula. As for the beaver stream, it is more useful and less harmful than other means. It is drunk in quantities of two to three spoons, dividing this dose many times; in total, the amount of beaver stream received must correspond to that indicated above. It is least harmful to drink it after eating, whatever the food; There's nothing dangerous about it.

The means of treatment also include lubrication with the already mentioned oils with a highly absorbable property, for example, oil of mad cucumber, castor oil, rue and bush with beaver stream and saliva extract; it is very useful. Lubricate with melted fat tail fat, narcissus oil, as well as oil of the following composition: take spikenard oil - one cyst, khudad oil - one cyst, wax - two ukiyya, Dubrovnik polyum, amom, may'i and mastic - one ukiyah each, pepper and furbiyun - four mithqals each, sumbul - one uqiyya and balsam oil - one uqiyya; All this is mixed and consumed. It is also useful to apply a medicinal bandage of furbiyun; she helps a lot.

As for the spasms that occur in nurses, it is enough for them to put a bandage of honey mixed with saffron, iris rhizome and anise on their joints, and there should be more of iris rhizome, less anise, and very little saffron. You should constantly wash the diseased organs with water in which chamomile, medicinal clover and fenugreek were boiled; Chamomile oil alone often helps.

Wine in small quantities is beneficial for those suffering from wet cramps; it removes spasms in the same way that fever removes them. But in large quantities, wine is the most harmful cause of spasms; you need to give old wine to drink, but a little and after a small amount of food. Know that when spasms cover the entire body, except for the facial organs, doctors direct attention to the cervical vertebrae, using medicinal dressings and rubbing. If spasms spread to the facial organs, then doctors also pay attention to the brain. When a spasm is caused by the complicity of the stomach and you observe the mentioned signs of this, then hasten to empty the patient’s stomach; Often it is enough for him to vomit acute bile or putrefied juice, and he immediately recovers.