Introductory address delivered at the opening of the Edinburgh Medical School, ... November, 1873 / [Balfour].

  • Balfour, George William, 1823-1903.
Date:
1873
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Introductory address delivered at the opening of the Edinburgh Medical School, ... November, 1873 / [Balfour]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

    2/16
    coTloc^toTirof^''^- appearance of some fluid col ected in glass jars winch he thinks he recognises, he proceeds ot the uune. He points out that clouds in the urine are fkvourable nmri'° I' that, however Hght may be hat colour, the i)rognosi8 becomes more unfavourable if I L i fr' '^ '''^ J'^'-'^'^ ^^^1' ^'i absolutely unfavour- l\t]Z, ^ e^^^*^^ turbidity of the urine wi hout any sediment; while a sediment, smooth, white, and con- sistent, indicates freedom from danger and a short illness: but if tne urine be occasionally clear, the disease will be protracted, leiiow thm urine indicates an unconcocted disease, and a danger lest the patient may not be able to hold out till the disease become concocted; while a dark-coloured urine is always bad, and the darker the urine the worse the prognosis, especially if it be accom- panied by a farinaceous sediment; and if bubbles settle on the unne the kidneys are affected, and the complaint sure to be pro- tracted. Thus pleasantly discoursing on the results of his experi- ence obtained in his own infirmary—the Asclepion of Cos—and delighted at the ease with which his clear and incisive, if somewhat dogmatic, sentences have flowed from lips silent for so many hundred years, Hippocrates glances complacently round upon his audience, and finds tliat, while he has been speaking, one of the young men has, by boiling some of the urine in a test-tube, obtained an opaque, milky-looking fluid, and another a copious brick-red deposit. A little agliast at tliese peculiar.and unexpected results, he wisely says nothing; and when suddenly asked as to what he thinks of the comparative merits of picric and nitric acids as tests for albumen, he feigns a little deafness, but the look of helpless imbecility which begins to steal over his ^ace is not lessened when another inquires whether he prefers Moore's, Trommer's, or Boettcher's test for sugar in the urine, or whether he possesses any other less fallacious, and what he thinks of a milk diet as a curative agerit. The words milk diet recall the fast-fading colour faintly to his cheek, and with one timid glance at the microscope, beneath which one of the clerks has a preparation, the nature of which he is anxious to know, poor Hippocrates passes out into the ward, discoursing pleasantly of the virtues of ass' and of cow's milk, of their hurtfulness in fevers, and of their curative virtues in gout and in phthisis.^ The physician, ignoring his visitor's peculiar ideas as to the use of milk in fever, courteously inquires his views as to tu- bercle, what he thinks of its relation to inflammation generally, and to catarrhal pneumonia in particular; and, without waiting for his answer, shows him a fine specimen of the cracked-pot sound, and then hands him a stethoscope that he may listen to a peculiarly good example of bronchophony. The word has a Greek ring about it, and thinking he may understand it better with the instrument ^ Vide UpoyuuffTtKov and 'A^opiff/xol. 'A<popi<r/jiol.