The practice of medicine, according to the plan most approved by the Reformed or Botanic Colleges of the U. S : embracing a treatise on materia medica and pharmacy ; illustrated with numerous engravings ; designed principally for families / by J. Kost.

  • Kost, J., 1819-1904.
Date:
1847
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The practice of medicine, according to the plan most approved by the Reformed or Botanic Colleges of the U. S : embracing a treatise on materia medica and pharmacy ; illustrated with numerous engravings ; designed principally for families / by J. Kost. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University.

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    nature of their use, eannot be favored with the protection of an epidermis, as is nearly every other surface of the entire system; but the nerves and vessels, with which these organs are so abundantly supplied, are invested only with a mucous membrane of the most delicate structure. When, in view of this extreme delicacy, it is considered that the human stom- ach is the devoted receptacle of all that is called for by our depraved appetites, which are only governed by the CapricidtiS- ness of an imagination stimulated by the corrupt fashions of our day; and what is worse, fashion, by its magic influence, has led us to impose upon our stomachs, services so unnatural and incongruous, as to make of them a kind of portable apoth- entry's shop, or dispensary, where drugs of every kind are kept, even without bottles or envelopes, for distribution; it will then not seem strange that inflammation of the mucous membrane should be of such frequent occurrence. There can be but little doubt that dyspepsia, in the large majority of cases, is produced by inflammation of the gastro- enteric mucous membrane. Dr. Eberle remarks:* The worst forms of dyspepsia, and all that host of inveterate gas- trie and bilious disorders of which so much is heard, and the true nature of which is so often misunderstood, are, in nine cases out of ten, the consequences of a chronic inflammatory condition of the lining membrane of the stomach. The slow and insiduous progress of this grade of gastric inflammation during its early period, is indeed well calculated to elude ob- servation, and to lead to a misapprehension of its true char- acter. Dunglison writes to the same import; and Dr. Stokes in his lectures,f speaking of chronic gastritis, makes it the chief cause of dyspepsia; he remarks:—It [chronic gastritis.] is commonly called dyspepsia, and this term, loose and unlim- ited in its acceptation, often proves a stumbling-block to tin1 student in medicine. Dyspepsia, you know, [speaking to his class.'] means difficult digestion, a, circumstance which may depend on many causes, but perhaps on none more frequent- ly, than upon chronic gastritis.*** Long continued lunction- al lesion will eventually produce more or less organic disease; and you will find that in most cases of old dyspepsia, there is more or less gastritis. But let us go further, and inquire whether those views are borne out by the ordinary treatment of dyspeptic cases. When you open a book on the practice of physic, and turn to the article dyspepsia, one of the first things which strikes you, is the vast number of cures for indi- gestion. The more incurable a disease is, and the less we ^Practice, vol. 1, p. 218. tStok.es and Bell's practice; second editionn, vol. 1, p. 125.