The first lines of the practice of surgery: designed as an introduction for students, and a concise book of reference for practitioners (Volume 1).

  • Samuel Cooper
Date:
1822
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The first lines of the practice of surgery: designed as an introduction for students, and a concise book of reference for practitioners (Volume 1). 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.)

    84/738
    surgeons of the present day use bark much less frequently and copiously than ty r predecessors. They sometimes give it in hectic fever, with a view of improving the appetite, but never with the supposition that it can directly strengthen the patient in proportion to the quantity taken into the stomach. The infusion, decoction, or extract, is to be preferred to the powder, which has often been known to cause distressing sick- ness and obstinate diarrhoea.* Dr. Young looks upon steel as the best tonic, when the hectic symptoms have somewhat aba- ted, and general debility has taken place. It may sometimes be joined with myrrh, Peruvian bark, and other bitters.t The patient is much more likely to be strengthened by nourishing food, easy of digestion, than by bark, and it should be taken frequently, and in small quantities at a time. Re- siding in a pure, salubrious air, is also a matter of great im- portance. In these cases, gentle cordials and aromatic draughts, inclusive of a moderate proportion of wine, are sometimes useful, especially in relieving the heartburn, and flatulence, which often prove extremely afflicting. Here* opium is also a valuable medicine, not only procuring sleep and alleviating pain, but acting, especially when joined with ipecacuanha, as one of the best remedies for checking the diarrhoea frequently present. Digitalis has been lately praised for its beneficial effects in hectic fever; but Professor Thomson, who has tried this medicine, reports, that he entertains no sanguine expectation of good from it. The frequency of the pulse, says Dr. Young, may indeed often be reduced by digitalis, from 120 to 50 strokes in a minute ; but, it is a medicine extremely uncertain in its operation, and frequently violent and unmanageable in its effects. Nor is it either immediately or ultimately bene- ficial in simple hectic affections.]: For checking the noctur- nal sweats, no medicine is equal to the sulphuric acid.S When the local disease is curable, if the constitution could bear it long enough, or the health were improved, medicine may be availing ; but the utmost which can be expected from it in all other instances, is a temporary palliation of the symptoms. These, however, will recur, and in the end prove fatal, unless the diseased part, tht cause of the febrile disorder be such as to admit of removal by a surgical operation. Thomson's Lectures on Inflammation, p. 328 t On Consumptive Diseases, p. 50. t P. 49. § & Menthae Sativae |iss. Conservae Rosae §ij Aq. ferventis tt>i» Acidi Sulph. diluti 3iij. Maceraper horam et cola, dosis ^ij,sexto, quaque noru