A systematic treatise, historical, etiological, and practical, on the principal diseases of the interior valley of North America : as they appear in the Caucasian, African, Indian, and Esquimaux varieties of its population / By Daniel Drake, M. D. Ed. by S. Hanbury Smith and Francis G. Smith.

  • Daniel Drake
Date:
1854
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A systematic treatise, historical, etiological, and practical, on the principal diseases of the interior valley of North America : as they appear in the Caucasian, African, Indian, and Esquimaux varieties of its population / By Daniel Drake, M. D. Ed. by S. Hanbury Smith and Francis G. Smith. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University.

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    Charles Crossgrove, a respectable superintendent of a cotton plantation, in Concordia Parish, Louisiana, had administered quinine with great success. I had a conversation with him on the subject, and, he, also, gave me a writ- ten statement, of which the following is the substance : On the plantation there are fifty-five negroes, and a white family. No physician had been employed for three years. Autumnal fever, in its differ- ent varieties, had been the chief disease. He began the administration of quinine without any previous evacuation. The first day, he gave two doses, of ten grains each ; the nest day, three doses, of the same size. He never had occasion to administer the medicine beyond the third day, and it had never failed, in a single case, to ''■ break the fever. It is worthy of remark, that, on the plantations of the South, the treatment is begun with the begin- ning of the Fever, before deep-seated congestions or inflammations have been formed. Finally, I may add, that, when exploring the statistics of the great Charity Hospital of New Orleans, in 1844, I found that a change had taken place in the method of treating patients there, as great as I have found over the country at large. The mercurial and drastic practice had given wa}' to mild aperients, occasional bloodletting, and an early exhibition of quiuine; the effect of which had been a diminution in the number of deaths, com- pared with the number of cases admitted into the hospital. These citations show that, in all parts of the Iutcrior Valley, there are physicians who, for several years past, have been changing their modes of practice in the same direction; and that, too, without borrowing from one another. The reform may be said to have arisen spontaneously in each por- tion of the country; and is, therefore, entitled to the greater confidence. The facts which I have presented were collected from 1840 to 1844, in- clusive, and, at the end of the latter year, transcribed and arranged. During that period, and since, more has been published on the treatment of the Fever, than for a long time before; and almost every paper testifies to what I am attempting to establish. But I do not think it necessary to make a transcript of this published experience, as it is within the reach of our phy- sicians, and does not materially extend our knowledge on this point, beyond the unpublished notes which have just been presented, however strongly it may confirm the conclusions to be drawn from them.* It may be said that I have given the evidence on one side only. This 1 grant, but I know of none on the other. All our physicians are advoi of the quinine-practice; and even those who postpone the administration of the antiperiodic to a later stage of the Fever, and subject their patient- to a longer preparatory treatment, do not, in general, profess to have given the * The papers to which I allude, may bechii-lh found in tin- AmerioiD JToonu] of tfafl Htdieaj E andinti .. Orient BtLouli Louiarl le, Olnoinnnti, and ltuffalo. Several of them are from gcnllcuun whose DU1N are in ttu brftgoing catalogue of authorities. Of those with whom I had not thi opportui Di HoGormtak, And Di l'i>rt<-r. V.S.A., whose ob- servations in Florida r infirm, in the amplest manner, all that has been said.
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