On the remedial properties of alimentary substances, and the changes produced by oxygen in health and disease : being an address delivered before the Illinois State Medical Society / by W.B. Herrick.

  • Herrick, William B. (William Bentley), 1813-1865.
Date:
1851
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the remedial properties of alimentary substances, and the changes produced by oxygen in health and disease : being an address delivered before the Illinois State Medical Society / by W.B. Herrick. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    lead to the most beautiful and valuable results, in regard to their em- ployment in various diseases. It is a remarkable fact worthy to be ta- ken into consideration in connection with this subject, that as a general rule the organic acids are the most efficient remedial agents in rheumatic affections, and other diseases of that class, in which, as we contend, there is excessive oxydation; whilst those of the opposite character, as the Miasmatic Fevers, are treated most effectually with the vegetable alkalies, such as Quinine, Cinchonine, &c, either alone or in-combina- tion, not with the organic, but with the inorganic acids. Whether these remedial agents favor oxydation b\' combining with, and removing acids, or by what chemists call catalysis, is a ques- tion of much physiological interest, but of little practical value, as af- fecting the general principle which the above facts seem to establish, that alkalies, especially those derived from the vegetable kingdom, are as a class, the proper remedies for the diseases under consideration. Chloride of Sodium is a well known simple article, in common use, which, with our old notions of heroic treatment, would never have been suspected of possessing medicinal properties, yet modern ef- forts to devise means by which to avoid poisoning our patients, have resulted in the discovery that common salt may be and is used, for other and more important purposes than that of making food palatable, as wil] appear from the following statement taken from a recent periodical, con- cerning the use of this new and simple remedy. Prof. Piorry, in reporting to the Academy of Medicine (Paris) upon the proposed use of table salt in intermittent fevers, states that if ad- ministered in doses of two table-spoonfulls it will not only arrest the disease, but also exert upon the spleen as marked effect as quinine does. In twelve cases of intermittent fever, the salt uniformly arrested the paroxysms, and lessoned very materially the size of the spleen. The spleen was also found to diminish when the remedy was given, in cases of typhoid fever. Before meeting with the above, our attention had been called to this remedy, by my colleague Dr. Brainard, who in view of its well known effects in preventing decay and the destruction of blood globules, was induced to administer salt, in some cases of Pneumonia, attended with great prostration and copious brick-dust expectoration. The effect of this treatment in relieving all the unpleasant symptoms, and especially in changing the character of the sputa, was prompt and satisfactory. More recently other cases of the same, and some of a different char-