On bubo and perinaeal abscess / by John L. Milton.

  • Milton, J. L. (John Laws), 1820-1898
Date:
1851
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On bubo and perinaeal abscess / by John L. Milton. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    suppuration lias set in, whatever we may do, resolution and re-absorption only take place in a very small number of cases, and that if we endeavour to obtain it in other cases we shall do so in vain, or at the risk of producing very serious mischief.” Again; Mr. Gibert, in a letter to the editor of the Gazette Medicate, says, “ The venereal bubo is often followed by serious consequences, and the ordinary anti-phlogistic treat- ment is quite powerless against it.” To quote more authorities would only take up the reader’s time to no purpose, and, in fact, it is now, I believe, accepted as an established point, that after a certain stage has been passed, it is useless, by any of these methods, to attempt to arrest the progress of suppuration, although in some cases suc- cess has followed the use of a vomit. The success I met with in checking other inflammations of the cellular tissue by means of tartar emetic* encouraged me to try it extensively in bubo ; the result of which was, that in almost every case in which it was carried properly out, resolution was affected, if the case came early enough under treatment; and that even in those in which suppuration had proceeded to a con- siderable extent, an immediate arrest of all the most prominent symptoms was obtained. In that paper I hazarded the opinion, that tartar emetic was the most powerful, direct and rapid of all anti-phlogistic remedies in inflammations of the cellular tissue, and numberless instances have since confirmed me in this view. To ensure success it must be given freely, resolutely, and ceaselessly. 1st.—Freely. To give a full-grown man such doses as are used in most saline mixtures, consisting of one-eighth or one- twelfth of a grain, was never productive of much good in any of the cases I saw it used in ; and when the inflammation runs high, such practice is downright trifling,—something like giving quarter or half-grain doses of opium in peritonitis. To produce decided effect, the least dose must be three-fourths of or half a grain ; this will rarely cause sickness more than once, it will almost immediately relieve the pain, and the nausea it creates will hardly last longer than that produced by small doses. Sndly.—Resolutely. If the patient can only be induced to conquer the repugnance to the medicine which repeated vomit- * See Lancet, 1851, I. p. 353.
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