Researches respecting the medical powers of chlorine, particularly in diseases of the liver ; with an account of a new mode of applying this agent, by which its influence can be secured / by William Wallace.

  • Wallace, William, 1791-1838.
Date:
1822
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Researches respecting the medical powers of chlorine, particularly in diseases of the liver ; with an account of a new mode of applying this agent, by which its influence can be secured / by William Wallace. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by King’s College London. The original may be consulted at King’s College London.

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    their operation the same, or that we should ex- pect the one to serve the purpose of the other? As well might we say that every remedy, which influences the stomach in particular, has a similar action, and that the one might be used for the other. If such reasoning was founded in nature, the articles of our Materia Medica need not be very numerous. Or is it because there is a si- milarity among some of the diseases, which they are calculated to relieve, that we should consider them the same ? How absurd would such a sup- position be ! Because the same disease is cura- ble by different means we are to consider these means as similar ! The value of mercury is too well known, and the powerful and salutary effects how it can be indebted for its utility to any other mode of operation*'' Thus, while he in one place classes this valuable remedy among the con- ceits of quacks and enthusiasts, he admits in another its possible influence that it is “ capable of affecting the bowels that it may “ occasionally pro- duce benefitand then he makes a most extraordinary remark, that it is ** extremely difficult to conceive how it can be indebted for its utility to any other mode of operation”—than what? “than its powers of affecting the bowels. Does he forget that it is in this very way that almost all our efficient remedies act ? However, even if it should be difficult to con- ceive to what it can be indebted for its utility, we are not, on that account, to deny its efficacy. As Mr. C. Bell says, “ What although witnessing such effects of a remedy, we were to be left disputing about the action of the medicine, or the nature of the disease. Of how little real consequence is this difference of opinion?” L. C. pp. 338-9. Let Dr. Paris try the medical powers of chlorine, in the manner in which I employ it, and he will no longer place it among “ inert remedies^'' nor talk of “ its possible influence,
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