The antidotal treatment of the epidemic cholera / by John Parkin.

  • John Parkin
Date:
[1866?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The antidotal treatment of the epidemic cholera / by John Parkin. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    125/290 (page 119)
    disease in England. But, as the Epidemic extended to Scotland and Ireland, and, subsequently, to America and Canada, to which places a printed circular was sent, recommending a trial of carbon and its compound, I was in hopes that some valuable evidence would have been derived from these sources. But in this expectation I was, if not altogether, in a great measure disappointed ; for although it is certain that the antidote came to be more and more generally employed, the evidence derived from this source is only indirect. The antidotal agent, instead of being given alone, was combined with other remedies; so that the evidence became, to a great extent, invali- dated. All that could be ascertained was this : from an examination of the different reports that were sub sequently published, respecting the treatment of the disease, it appeared that the most successful method was that to which carbonic acid had been added. This, so far, is an important link in the chain of presump- tive evidence. If many different plans of treatment are adopted, and various remedies used, at the same time that a particular medicine is common to all, it is more philosophic to refer this effect to one particular agent than to many different ones—provided we have other proof that this cause is sufficient for the purpose. This, at least, was my opinion; and I was about drawing up a Memoir in order to show these facts more clearly, when the intelligence reached England of the outbreak of the Epidemic Cholera in Spain.