Mont-Dore (Puy-de-Dome) hydromineral station and high air cure / conference by L. Landouzy.

  • Louis Théophile Joseph Landouzy
Date:
1908
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Mont-Dore (Puy-de-Dome) hydromineral station and high air cure / conference by L. Landouzy. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    27/38 (page 27)
    It is not because it is endowed with chemical properties actings peci- fically or as antidotes, but because it is detersive, derivative, and anti- congestive, that the treatment creates circumstances less favourable to para¬ sitic invasions; it is also because its topical action is scarring and at the same time has a power of resolvent, that it permits of regulating to some extent the procedure of curative sclerosis, and that it is the treatment for quite a variety of confirmed sufferers from tuberculosis, those even in whom the disease already begins to develope into phthisis. An other condition of success is that the struggle against the disease must be undertaken during an intermission of the specific pullulation and of the toxin ic fever. When at the termination only of one of these agressive periods we confide certan of our tuberculous arthritic patients to our skilful colleagues at Mont- Dore that they may help them either to resolve the inflammation — post, peri, or para-tuberculous — or to soothe the parts round about the lesion, then the Mont-Dore treatment can produce startling results. We have seen these cures, even in the case of certain of our patients suffering from phthisis and having been attacked in some degree by pulmo¬ nary consumption, provided that at Mont-Dore their doctor have tended them with a hand gloved in velvet, and provided of course that the organic ground put into contact with the Montdorian treatment was such as would permit of beneficial reaction, and of not offensive irritation. With regard to this, it must be remembered that, by reason of its anti- congestive action, Mont-Dore — far from being dangerous in a case of hemoptysis (provided of course that there is no question of cavities with aneurismatic vessels or of neuropaths erethic to such a degree that the slightest physical or psychical stimulation brings on a hemorrhage) — generally succeeds in reducing the frequency and the intensity of the attacks of congestion. Reserving for Eaux-Bonnes or for Allevard those suffering from a tor¬ pid form of tuberculosis, and for La Bourboule persons suffering from scro- fular or from hereditary dystrophia; in whom the organic ground is highly susceptible to bacterial influence, and on the slightest provocation changes the fear into a reality, we must select those among the tuberculous patients who have an arthritic temperament and a congestive reaction, and send them here to Mont-Dore. Basing my statements upon the results obtained under the same con¬ ditions carefully determined, I was able, at the Berlin Congress in May 1899, to oppose to the partisans of the uniform principle of treatment in a sanatorium for all forms of tuberculosis, the advantages of the applica¬ tion of the Brehmer principle in thermal and climatic stations, and, to extol with justice, among the most fortunate examples of these therapeutic associations, the ameliorations and cures effected at Mont-Dore upon certain tuberculous patients selected from among those suffering from congestive disorders and irritative lesions.