On the nature, treatment and prevention of pulmonary consumption and incidentally of srofula : with a demonstration of the cause of the disease / by Henry M'Cormac.

  • Henry MacCormac
Date:
1855
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the nature, treatment and prevention of pulmonary consumption and incidentally of srofula : with a demonstration of the cause of the disease / by Henry M'Cormac. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    80/136 (page 64)
    many others after them. In fact, and I cannot too often ]-epeat it, nature endeavours to remedy every case of tuberculous deposit, and would succeed vastly oftener in her endeavours, as they may most justly be charac- terised, did we only second them by suitably adjusted treatment. Sublata causa tollitur effectus. The etio- logy of phthisis and therefore the treatment both curative and preventative hitherto pursued, have been little better than nugatory. Laennec adverts to the occasional efficacy of a residence by the sea-shore, but does so in- cidentally, and without any real appreciation of the advantages conditionally derivable from it. Indeed such are the contradictory, subversive opinions main- tained on the subject, that many decry a sea-shore residence for the consumptive altogether. Phthisis may last in certain habits comparatively latent for years, till continual accretions perchance hasten the process of elimination. Occasionally severe and re- peated attacks of inflammation develop this morbid pro- cess. Among the recoveries from phthisis which I recollect to have witnessed, three in particular, strongly impressed me. The first was a street-hawker who had consulted me on three different occasions ere unequivo- cal phthisis made its appearance. He came into the hospital under my charge, with profuse purulent expec- toration, pectoriloquy, emaciation and hectic. Me ral- Jied and left the hospital, eventually regaining ordinary health and stamina. Tlie second was a medical man in whom every evidence of phthisis, rational and piiysical, was complete. The purulent expectoration was ex-