Selected essays and monographs : translations and reprints from various sources.

Date:
1897
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Selected essays and monographs : translations and reprints from various sources. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    forthcoming of the injurious effects of prolonged mercurial treatment. In my experience such results are more likely to be ex- perienced by those physicians who treat symptoms and consider that every recent or sluggishly disappearing eruption must be forthwith submitted anew to a course of energetic mercurial inunction. I have seen several such patients in a condition of extreme cachexia, with hmmorrhagic eruptions, emaciated and anaemic, with all the symptoms of mercurial poisoning, but not one of them had been treated according to Fournier’s method; on the contrary, the physician has carried out “ symptomatic ” treatment with all the disastrous results of hydrargyrism. Often however it is not so much the fault of the physician in such cases of over-treatment as that of the patient who goes from one medical man to another whenever a fresh symptom shows itself, demands energetic treatment because, as he states, he has not had enough mercurjq and many of the opposite school to ourselves yield to his request with frequently disastrous results. In urging the prolonged course of treatment we emphasize the importance of the intermissions. These intermissions must be strictly observed in order to prevent poisonous effects, and so as not to interfere with the efficacy of the drug. It is by no means seldom that I am obliged to prohibit its continua- tion where physician and patients would be anxious, because the case was grave, to carry out an energetic course of inunction. The drawing up a uniform plan of treatment is an effective means of preventing abuse of the drug. I would remind those who dread the consequences of mercurial treatment and there- fore dispense with the drug, that there are sins of omission as well as commission. The general public is silent as long as it is ignorant on these matters, but we condemn the medical man who treats insufficiently just as much as the one who does so excessively. Certain cases of syphilis maligna have been adduced as examples of the pernicious results of Fournier’s method. But every experienced physician knows that “ syphilis maligna” must be treated very sparingly with mercury owing to the intolerance of this form of syphilis to the drug; and how therefore can the untoward results after repeated mercurial