Fallacies of the faculty, with the principles of the chrono-thermal system of medicine : in a series of lectures originally delivered in 1840, at the Egyptian Hall, Piccadilly / by S. Dickson.
- Samuel Dickson
- Date:
- 1843
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Fallacies of the faculty, with the principles of the chrono-thermal system of medicine : in a series of lectures originally delivered in 1840, at the Egyptian Hall, Piccadilly / by S. Dickson. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.
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![dropsy. It lias^ nevertheless, the power to suspend the urinary secretion. There is an affection to which young women are remarka- bly subject—a periodic pain of the side—or stitch. This disorder has been maltreated under a variety of names, according to the notions entertained by attending practitioners, as to its origin and nature. If practitioners would only take the trouble to ask the patient whether the affected side be colder or hotter than natural, I do not think they would be so forward, as they usually are, to order leeches and cupping- glasses. In ninety cases out of a hundred, the sufferer will tell you that that side is always chilly! This at least might convince them Injiammation is not the “ head and front of offending.” Such pain is the result of spasm of one or more of the intercostal muscles— which pain, when the patient is told to inspire, will assuredly increase. Beware of adding to it by blood-letting! In numerous cases, it will yield to half-grain doses of nitrate of silver— failing which, prussic acid, quinine, or arsenic, may be successively tried; and to one or other of these, it will prove, for the most part, ame- nable. In pain of stomach after eating—also a disease of the spasmodic kind—I have found silver particularly valuable. In all varieties of cough and catarrh, I have derived advantage from its employment; and I am sure it has, in my hands, contributed to the cure of indubita- ble phthisis. Let it be at the same time re- membered that I do not exclusively rely upon this medicine in any one form of disease;—for, unless it be sulphur for psora, I do not know a specific in physic! There is a disorder to which aged individuals and persons who have suffered much from men- tal anxiety are liable—a disposition to faint and fall—often mistaken, and fatally mistreated, under the name of “ tendency to apoplexy.” The employment of silver in this affection has, in my practice, been very generally successful. I have found it also decidedly advantageous in vertigo, and in many cases of mental confusion. Nitrate of silver has a great influence over the spine and spinal nerves; for patients some- times complain of pains like lumbago, sciatica, and rheumatism while taking it. I have oc- casionally known it produce shivering and fainty sensations, but these inconveniences were merely temporary, going off upon the discon- tinuance of the medicine. It has cured them all when produced by other causes. You are aware that blueness of skin is an occasional effect of nitrate of silver ; and I must here ex- plain to you the reason. Many of you have seen, doubtless, the pictures produced by light on paper saturated with nitrate of silver. Be- fore the nitrate of silver could turn the human face blue, the skin, as in the case of the paper employed in that process, must be completely saturated with the preparation—for how other- wise could the light affect the face in that man- ner. Though I have myself prescribed nitrate of silver thousands of times, I never witnessed the slightest tinge from its use—nor would any other practitioner have to complain of it in this respect, but such as had employed it in too large doses, or too continuously. Who, then, would reject a valuable remedy, because its abuse has produced, in rare instances, a pecu- liar colour of skin—seeing that even/remedy, if improperly applied, may occasion the far greater calamity of death itself! Copper, like silver, is now seldom used but in epilepsy. Fordyce, nevertheless, thought so highly of it as a remedy for ague, that he ranked it with the Peruvian bark. Boerhaave, Brown, and others, esteemed it for its diuretic power; and accordingly they prescribed it in dropsy. In the same disease, and in asthma, I have had reason to speak well of it, and I can also bear testimony to its salutary influence in chronic dysentery—a form of disease so frequent in the East Indies, that while serving there, I had many opportunities of testing Dr Elliotson’s favourable opinion of its value. That it can produce all these disorders is equally true ; for where it has ])een taken in poisonous doses, “ it excites,” according to Parr, “ a pain in the stomach, and griping in the bowels, tenesmus, ulceration, bloody stools, difficult breathing, and contrac- tion of the limbs.” A universal or partial shiver will be found to precede or accompany all these symptoms. Copper was a favourite febrifuge with the older practitioners. Iron is a very old remedy for ague—per- haps the oldest. Stahl particularly dilates upon its virtues in this affection. Much of the effi- cacy of a medicine depends upon the constitution of the season and climate—much upon the con-](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b28037789_0190.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
