The theory and practice of counter-irritation / by H. Cameron Gillies.

  • Gillies, H. Cameron (Hugh Cameron)
Date:
1895
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The theory and practice of counter-irritation / by H. Cameron Gillies. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    all over the earth, clianging in signification with every doctrine, and still have not taken a definite meaning. Of these the term counter-irritation may be taken to be a good example. Although this is not very old, unless we can extend it back to the meta-syncrasis of Thessalus, laTpoviKy^, and the meta-poropoiesis of Galen, it may with perfect safety be said that it has had thousands of difi'erent meanings in its time. One might almost risk the assertion that it has a thousand diff'erent meanings in our own usage of to-day. When a dis- cussion of the subject took place some years ago in the medical journals, Dr. Anstie, who took a leading part, had to confess that he was fairly startled by the wide divergence of views that were shown to have been all along concealed under the external appearance of agreement in the orthodoxy part, and if we may judge from our text-books w^e are not much clearer on the matter now. In the very inception and origin of the expression it seems to embody a theory, or perhaps two, or even three theories. There is plainly implied in it that irritation is the cause of inflammatory disease, and that inflammation is always an evil; and it is further implied that this form of remedy acts counter to or against the diseasing cause, to undo it or to prevent its operation, and so to bring about a healthy state. Eegarding the first assumption that irritation is the cause of inflammatory disease, whether it is right or wrong, or from whatever point we may view it, there cannot be any serious objection to it in this
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