Letter to John Forbes ... on his article entitled 'Homœopathy, allopathy, and young physic' contained in the number [XLI] of the [British and Foreign Medical] Review for January, 1846 / by William Henderson.

  • William Henderson
Date:
1846
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Letter to John Forbes ... on his article entitled 'Homœopathy, allopathy, and young physic' contained in the number [XLI] of the [British and Foreign Medical] Review for January, 1846 / by William Henderson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    21/78 (page 15)
    give the latter less than its due, small as that may be. Gri- solle, as you know, left eleven slight* cases of pneumonia to take their own way undisturbed by treatment, and he gives an account of the time during which the characteristic ex- pectoration, pain, and fever continued, and of the period at which the phenomena of auscultation began to decline, and when they disappeared. He does the same in reference to the cases that were treated by blood-letting, and tartar emetic, and affirms, justly, that the latter were convalescent sooner than the former. The details are to the following effect: 1. In the eleven left to nature, the pain did not cease in a single case before the seventh day ; in several it lasted till the 20th, 25th, and 27th days ; the mean was fifteen days. In four he was forced to have recourse to cupping, owing to the persistence of the pain, and one of them required a blister in addition. [He helped the power of nature a little, after all] In the cases that were bled, (two hundred and thirty-two- in all,) the mean duration of the pain was seven days. In those that were treated with tartar emetic alone, (forty- four in number,) he does not mention the mean duration of the symptom. But he says, “ the first sign of amendment consisted in a diminution, and sometimes a total cessation of the pain, which was often very pungent and acute.” In five * In alluding to them, you say, “Dr. Henderson misjudges these cases in terming them ‘ slight,’ in comparison with the one treated by him. They seem to have been fully as severe.’' P. 246. I persist, notwithstanding, in calling them slight, unquestionably slight, cases. For Grisolle not only says that the general symptoms were mild enough to satisfy him that he might leave them to themselves without danger, but he says that the inflammation was “ of s?nall extent” in all of them. Why did you not notice this most essential particular T If you had, you could not have added that they were “ fully as severe” as the case of mine to which you allude. That case is stated to have had the lung condensed “ as high as the spine of the scapula,” and from “ the axilla all down the lateral aspect of the side”—about two-thirds, at least, of the whole lung. No small extent truly. In what other respects they were as severe, neither you nor I have any means of knowing. Grisolle himself, the only au- thority on the subject, says nothing of the frequency of the pulse, or of the respi- rations, of the state of the mental faculties, or of the state of quiet or restlessness —the very point on which, much more than on any local signs, an opinion of the severity of a case of pneumonia ought to rest. But you take it for granted that his cases had delirium—pulses above 120, respirations 48, and much rest- lessness night and day ! All of these symptoms existed in my case, and must have existed in the eleven if they were as severe. No experienced physician can maintain that the mere fact of the disease having reached “the stage of red hepatization” is a proof that it was severe. A small extent of hepatization,, and mild general symptoms, constitute slight cases of pneumonia if the disease can ever be slight. I mention these particulars only to show how strangely you depreciate what is Homoeopathic, and magnify beyond all warrantable compass what may seem to bolster up your hypothesis.