The domestic practice of hydropathy / by Edward Johnson ; assisted by his sons, Dr. Walter and Dr. Howard Johnson.

  • Johnson, Edward, 1785-1862.
Date:
1850
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The domestic practice of hydropathy / by Edward Johnson ; assisted by his sons, Dr. Walter and Dr. Howard Johnson. 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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    and bleeding, act on this principle. In stating a doctrine, therefore, which, though well known to the learned, is probably new to the general reader, it becomes me to sub- stantiate the statement by authority; and I cannot quote a higher or better one than Dr. Pereira. It is, too, the most modern; for the second volume of the third edition of his laborious work is not yet out of the press. Having first shown how the doctrine of antagonism or counter-irri- tation has forced itself upon medical attention by unmis- takeable phenomena—how it has arisen, not out of the brain of the theorist, but out of the actual observation of facts—he proceeds thus: And we shall find that the greater part of our most valuable and certain remedies operate on the prin- ciple of antagonism or counter-irritation; that is, they pro- duce a secondary disease, (viz., the counter-irritation) which is related to the primary one. ****** QLir ]jS(. of agents producing this effect is a most extensive one. It comprehends emetics, purgatives, diffusible stimulants, mer- cury, blisters, cauteries, issues, setons, moxa, blood-lettinrr, including arteriotomy, leeches, cupping, and venesection, irritating lavements, frictions, sinapisms (mustard plasters), rubefacients, the hot and cold baths, and even mental im- pressions. For more authorities, and for much learned reasoning on this subject, see Elements of Materia Medica, and Therapeutics, by Jonathan Pereira, M.D., F.R.S. and L.S., Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians in London, and Vice-President of the Royal Medical and Chirurgical Society.—Vol. i. third edition, pp. 124 and 125. Talk of mustard plasters! of blisters a few inches sqiiare! of a paltry seton or issue! or the loss of a few ounces of blood! What are such paltry, partial, imperfect, and insig- nificant counter-irritants as these when compared with the crisis produced by the hydropathic treatment ?—with a crop of boils, over the whole body, as big as a pigeon's or hen's egg? or a universal eruption of pustules, like that of small pox ? or of a universal rash, like that of measles ? If