Letter from Dr. Hacket to Dr. Johnson, respecting Dr. Stevens' publication.

  • Hacket, W.
Date:
[1832]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Letter from Dr. Hacket to Dr. Johnson, respecting Dr. Stevens' publication. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    it might in some measure, and with some little shew of justice, be disputed by the gentleman who recommended to us the powerful auxiliary of large doses of quinine in lieu of the more minute and frequent ones we had been in the habit of giving, were they of the same temperament and monopolizing spirit that so eminently characterises the author of “Observations on the Blood;” and whilst I admit a full measure of credit to both these gentlemen for the benefits we derived from their recommen¬ dation, yet 1 much doubt if any plan of treatment in tropical 'fever can ever be re¬ markably successful, unless aided by the exertions of a most watchful and intelligent medical officer. I have stated two instances, in which the garrison was unhappily deprived of this assistance, and the consequence that appeared to me to arise therefrom; but the reverse of these I ever found Mr. Greatrex, and to his exertions, aided by croton oil and quinine, the subsequent success must be attributable. And here I would ask the profession to contemplate the well-known powerful elfects on the constitution of either of these remedies, whether given separately or in conjunction, as we often administered them ; —when this is considered, let them say, can we be blamed for calling Dr. Stevens’s pretensions presumption, or class his muriate of soda and nitrate of potass but as the veriest trumpery, since the days of Perkins’s metallic tractors, that ever has been at¬ tempted to be pawned on the medical public as a wonder-working remedy in fever ? Under “ Divine Providence,” the recorded system however, of which both the foregoing stated remedies formed with us the most marked and prominent features, and which, let it be always remembered, were never omitted to he administered to a single case of the 340 alluded to, was, notwithstanding Doctor Stevens’s assertions to the contrary, pre¬ eminently successful. Doctor Stevens asserts, that my dissection reports entirely agree with the appearance of the blood he has stated. This is indeed assertion with a vengeance. The fact is, seeing the absurd and unsupportable ground he had taken, he now comes round to my statement, gilded over with that special pleading, apparently so congenial to him, and, as it were, forgetting (and, I dare say, for his own credit, sincerely wishing it to be forgot) “ the dark watery black ink blood” so piteously and poetically previously expressed as occupying alike both circles of the vascular system, states now, in allusion to one of them, that ’tis dark, grumous, nay, he would say, viscid—but is perfectly silent as to the assertion he was pleased to indulge in about the contents to be found in the arterial circle. As to the graphic portrait of the fever he has favoured us with, it seems now it is but a solitary exception. Exceptions, we are taught to believe, only strengthen a general rule or description, such as I have given; yet, from this solitary exception alone, if ever such existed but in his imposing imagination, Dr. Stevens comes forward with an hypo¬ thesis, kindly to enlighten the profession! “ready cut and dry,” to meet all exigencies, and all classes of tropical fever. He disdains misrepresentation or want of candour. Here again we are at issue, and here again I arraign him of both. I have already pointed out his want of candour relative to Mr. Greatrex’s letter, and now accuse him of knowingly, wilfully, or albeit ignorantly, misrepresenting tropical fever generally, and doubly of misrepresentation, contained in the following quotation:—“ In both cavities of the heart the blood is equally black, and in the whole vascular system all distinction between arterial and venous blood is entirely lost:” and again, “the colour of the whole mass of blood, both in the arteries and veins, was changed from its natural scarlet or modena red to a dark black.” This is not a fact; I am bound to say, it is absolutely and utterly without foundation. There is no blood in the arteries after death in tropical fever cases; consequently it is a mere flourish of the learned gentleman’s to introduce his hypothesis, which I should be inclined to liken to the flourish or clash of a high sounding orchestra to introduce a new pantaloon in a new pantomime—to say that all distinction between the arterial and venous circle is lost, and that the blood is changed from its natural colour to a dark black. In the dead subject, in this disease, I repeat that the arteries are invariably empty. I repeat this not only on my own authority or observation, but on that of all the tropical practitioners I have conversed with on the subject. I also deny clearly, distinctly, and positively, that any change from its natural scarlet characteristic takes place in the living artery in the progress of fever. Conversing with Dr. Musgrave, a most respectable practitioner of Antigua, and not unknown to the profession, on this most strange assertion, sent forth to the public, he reminded me of the case of an officer of rank belonging to that garrison, to whom he
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