Koumiss and its use in medicine / by Victor Jagielski.

  • Jagielski, Apollinaris Victor.
Date:
1870
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Koumiss and its use in medicine / by Victor Jagielski. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    the opportunity to say something more on the subject. To- day the public has this opportunity in London itself, and may be enabled to judge for themselves. The writer of that article in. the Magazine, says:—“Since the death of Dr. Grieve, no notice has yet been taken of the Koumiss by the Faculty of Medicine. I had entirely forgotten all my extracts from Dr. Grieve s letter, when a circumstance, which lately occurred, suddenly brought them to my recollec- tion, revived the interest I formerly felt on the subject, and in- duced me, as a duty, to publish the information I have been able to gain concerning the properties of Koumiss ; and it is entirely owing to the accidental circumstances of the arrival from Russia of three friends of mine, a lady and two gentle- men, who have visited the banks of the Volga, the Country in which the Koumiss is made, and whose lives have been saved by its agency. This has led me to wield my humble pen in order to proclaim its virtues, so far as I am able, and induce persons in this country to make a trial of its medici- nal properties. “ The elder of these joersons is a man forty-seven years of age. Having led rather a dissipated life during his youth, which necessitated several courses of mercurial treatment, and having indulged rather too freely in wine and ardent spirits, during a period of ten or fifteen years, his health, when he left England upon important mercantile business, was so much impaired, that his friends never expected he would return. His symptoms very much resembled those described by Dr. Grieve as affecting the Russian nobleman. His body was fleshless and extenuated to an extreme degree; his skin was of lead colour—the real hue of death; his blood appeared stagnant; he could digest nothing ; he had dreadful chronic rheumatic pains in his bones ; his stomach refused to per- form its duties, and his body was covered with sores and blotches. To these afflictions were added several distressing infirmities. In this state he reached St. Petersburg, where he met the other two individuals whom I have mentioned.
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