The clinical value of bacteriology / by Freeland Fergus.

  • Fergus, A. Freeland (Andrew Freeland), 1858-1932.
Date:
[1905?]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The clinical value of bacteriology / by Freeland Fergus. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    body knows, an organic preparation of silver. It was announced as being marvellously efficacious, infinitely better than nitrate of silver, and the surgeon could use it without producing argyrosis. Protargol was said to have greater penetrating powers than nitrate of silver, and was altogether to revolutionise ocular therapeutics. A few months dispelled a part of this statement, for the salt was found to produce argyrosis quite as markedly as silver nitrate; and I think its great potency in curing disease may well be doubted when we consider that a few months later it was found necessary to invent another drug, known by the name of argyrol. Again there was the usual excitement, and great healing virtues were claimed for the new remedy. Still more recently, other drugs of a like nature have been announced as possessing most wonderful properties. The whole thing is to my mind rather suggestive of some firms of manu¬ facturing chemists who have certain articles to put on the market; their success depends on the fact that most persons are richer in faith than in the critical faculty. At any rate I have not found any of these drugs at all to coincide in value with their vaunted efficacy. Moreover, Mr. Bishop Harman, who has looked into this question tolerably thoroughly, has nothing to say in their favour. So far as proofs are available, they entirely confirm the views which we have expressed, and, in concluding, I would like to call attention to four distinct lines of argument. 1. Most cases of conjunctivitis heal of their own accord, just as do the specific fevers. In days gone by it was the practice of some physicians to administer small doses of belladonna to patients who were afflicted with scarlatina. No doubt a due proportion of such patients recovered. Would any one at present attribute their recovery to the infinitesimal doses of belladonna which had been administered ? So I should hesitate, when an infectious conjunctivitis recovers, to attribute the issue to any drug used. Such cases as, say, the conjunctivitis of Morax or of Weeks, will recover after they have run their course if simply left alone and kept clean. Take a case of Weeks’ conjunctivitis: you put into the conjunctival sac a few drops of a solution of protargol, and the patient gets better. I hold that you are not entitled to regard this as cause and effect, unless, indeed, you are prepared, when a patient who has a Weeks’ conjunctivitis and is under one of these new remedies is found on a subsequent visit to the hospital to have developed a corneal ulcer, to attribute this ulceration to the remedy employed. If you attribute recoveries to the use of these drugs, I fear, as a matter of logic, I must insist upon your attributing also the untoward events, which will take place in a certain proportion of cases, to the same remedy. One of the most extraordinary state¬ ments I have ever read is that solutions of protargol are much better than nitrate of silver, because the weaker the solution the