Carbonic acid in medicine / by Achilles Rose, M.D. ; with the portraits of van Helmont, Priestley and Lavoisier.

  • Achilles Rose
Date:
1905
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Carbonic acid in medicine / by Achilles Rose, M.D. ; with the portraits of van Helmont, Priestley and Lavoisier. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.

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    Bergeon, in the year 1886, published his new method of treatment of phthisis, based on the fact, established by Claude Bernard, that volatiles introduced into the rectum pass through the venous blood current to the lungs, where they will be eliminated without entering into the arterial system or developing any dele- terious effect. Bergeon expected, by means of enemata of sulfureted hydrogen, diluted with carbonic-acid gas, to destroy the tubercle bacilli within the lung. His method became widely known and was extensively practised in France and in America. The great majority of those who had employed this method confirmed the observation that the general condition of the patients treated was improved; but they soon found that the tubercle bacilli did not disap- pear, and that all improvement of the general condition was due to carbonic acid and not to sulfureted hydrogen. This method was then completely abandoned, because it did not an- swer the main expectation; it did not cure tu- berculosis. Remarkable it is, however, and all observers [72]