Medical notes and reflections / By Sir Henry Holland, bart. ... From the 3d London ed.

  • Sir Henry Holland, 1st Baronet
Date:
1857
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Medical notes and reflections / By Sir Henry Holland, bart. ... From the 3d London ed. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University.

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    ON PAIN, AS A SYMPTOM OF DISEASE. Though, strictly speaking, but an effect of disordered state or action of parts, and therefore mainly to be obviated by removal of the cause, yet is Pain, as a symptom of disease, a matter of great practical concernment to the physician and surgeon ; and often needing consideration apart from the actual nature of the malady. We have to regard not only what it denotes, but what it produces by its own influence on the various conditions of physical and mental temperament. And while the topic is thus connected with a very interesting point of physiology, it blends itself in other ways with many important details of treatment, and even with what may be deemed the moral obligations of the medical man. It is a just view of Aretseus, and well expressed, that although it is impossible for the physician to restore health to all who are sick, to suppose which would place him above the Divinity, it is yet his lawful office to procure freedom from pain, and inter- missions and suppression of disease.1 The maxim that physical suffering should be obviated, whenever, and as far as possible, is indeed a sound one, both as respects the feelings of the patient, and the general success of medical treatment. Pain is occasion- ally the proof of beneficial changes taking place, but is never in itself a good. It always implies a deviation from the natural 1' Yyizac; pev aizavra^ izoteeiv aduvarov rouq voasovrac, 7] yap av larpoq xpeHjaov Beoo'y a-xovirjv de y.ai diaket^naq /.at vouffcov errixpuipiaq dpav r^epcq carpov. Boerhaave, in a chapter headed Dolor, in his Praxis Medica, expresses surprise that the subject of the alleviation of pain is nowhere to be found expressly treated of. Nil est in tota medicina, quod Medico magis elogium procreare possit, quam sopitio doloris ; et tamen hrec materia nullibi tractata reperitur.