On pepsine / by M. Boudault ; translated by W. Stevens Squire.

  • Boudault, P.C.
Date:
1863
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On pepsine / by M. Boudault ; translated by W. Stevens Squire. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

    44/52 (page 44)
    ON PEPSINE. These five examples, each different, carry their own conclu- sion. Idiopathic or symptomatic disorders of the stomach, when they consist chiefly in a defective secretion, may be cured by the use of Pepsine powder alone, as we see in Observations II. and V. In certain cases of long illness, often in convalescence after acute disease, where a prolonged course of diet is necessary, it happens that the simplest experiments in feeding cause dan- gerous relapses, because the stomach has not recovered its ar- rested secretion; so that either from these unfortunate expe- riments, or, on the contrary, from the want of alimentation, recovery is hindered ; and patients who would have recovered if they had been supported, die without having had, so to speak, time to recover : it is thus in many cases of convalescence after typhus fever. (See Observation I.) Thus we see what heavy responsibility rests upon the medical man, who, from scepticism or from indifference, hesitates to employ reasonable methods, and allows inanition silently to supervene,—that is to say, death, Inanition,^' says Chossat, is the cause of death, which marches onward in silence with all disease in which the conditions of alimentation are not normal. How many times in all these cases have practitioners, im- pressed with these truths, endeavoured to nourish invalids by giving them aliments; but the deficiency of the digestive principle leaves them undigested. Medical men, alarmed by the attacks of indigestion, and the dangers of this new disturbance, pause, and ])refer, rather than expose themselves to the risk of mistake, to leave patients to themselves,—that is, to inanition, which leads to death. But will not physicians save many patients if they can at- tain their end, nourishing without indigestion, nourishing patients, so to speak, by dispensing with their stomach and their powers, and by carrying on within them, by the aid of Pepsine, an artificial digestion, which shall supply, without danger, the assimilating functions with nutriment endowed M'ith all assimilable properties ?