Facts establishing the efficacy of the opiate friction in spasmodic and febrile diseases. Also, outlines of an attempt to investigate the nature, causes, and method of cure, of hydrophobia and tetanus ... To which are added, cases and remarks / [Michael Ward].

  • Ward, Michael, active 1809.
Date:
[1809]
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Facts establishing the efficacy of the opiate friction in spasmodic and febrile diseases. Also, outlines of an attempt to investigate the nature, causes, and method of cure, of hydrophobia and tetanus ... To which are added, cases and remarks / [Michael Ward]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    I am fully aware of the great disadvan- tages I labour under in thus communicating, the cold affusion; as if this were a matter of indifference; though it is in reality of great consequence. For example ; in one instance, (a case of diabetes) the patient was placed tn a sitting posture during the affusion; so that the lower extremities would, of course, escape being wet. (See the Medical and Physical Journal. Vol. II, p. 548.) In another (a case of tetanus) the water was poured through a cullender over the patient, as he lay in bed. (Ib. Vol. 18, p. 440.) In a third instance, (likewise a case of tetanus) the patient was placed in a tub, * while from six to twenty-six buckets full of cold water were poured upon him. (Edin. Med. and Surg. Journal. Vol. 4, p. 448.) The best method of applying the cold affusion according to the notions I have formed, is, that recommended above in No. XIV; S. XVIII and XIX; and in the latter part of No. XV. - A similar remark may also be made with regard to the different methods which have of late prevailed, both as to the composition and mode of applying the frictio opiata, which seem to be in a great degree arbitrary: almost every one seeming to prefer a form of his own, apparently without suf- ficiently considering the tendency, or modus operand!, of the article added : the consequence of which has been, that drugs possessing qualities of a diametrically opposite nature to the opium, have been joined with the latter in the same prepara- tion, so as to counteract its efficacy in diminishing the morbid * [This method of placing the patient, is, in my humble opinion, the worst that could be devised for the purpose, because by allowing the water to accumulate about the feet, legs, &c. (though it must be a large tub that twenty-six buckets full, or about seventy gallons, of water, would not fill) it must tend powerfully to counteract the effeCts it is designed to produce; namely, to restore the equable and regular distribution of the sensorial power, amongst the different classes of nerves, muscles, &c.; and to restore the natural, that is, the progressive attion of the muscular fibres, generally throughout the body. See the third and fourth indications of cure.]