Index of medicine : a manual for the use of senior students and others / by Seymour Taylor.

  • Taylor, Seymour, 1851-
Date:
1894
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Index of medicine : a manual for the use of senior students and others / by Seymour Taylor. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    33/816 (page 17)
    may come into operation. The apparently hopeless case often recovers and the most trivial ailments occasionally prove fatal. Medicine can never be I'egarded as an exact science. Some diseases run a definite course, and we may safely say, unless death occur before, that the disease should have spent itself at a given date. Such an example is afforded by typhus fever, which ends abruptly on the 14th day. Other diseases run a fairly regular course, their date of termina- tion being within a narrow limit of two or three days. Pneumonia is an instance of this. We expect to see the febrile process abate between the 5th and 8th days. Yet other ailments have no regular or definite course. In some instances, recovery soon occurs, whilst in the next individual it is delayed or protracted for no obvious reason. Chorea is a type of such cases. Therefore, in forming a pi'ognosis, we must not be guided entirely by the general symptoms and natural history of a disease, but we must be influenced by the disease as it appears in, and is modified by, the individual. Thus, the controlling bias of age, habits, occupation, and previous illness, all bear important parts in the chances of recovery. ISTor must we forget that in one person any disease may be mild in character, whilst in the next case, with identi- cal surroundings, it assumes a grave tyj^e. It will be seen, in the following descriptions of various complaints, that certain signs, such as general dropsy, picking at the bed-clothes, aphthse in the mouth, are all regarded as of unfavourable omen ; but not necessarily so. We are seldom warranted in giving an opinion which destroys all hope in the minds of patient and friends ; nor, on the other hand, are we justified in lightly giving false encouragement in cases which our experience tells us generally terminate in death. Treatment constitutes the various methods by which we (a) prevent, {h) relieve, or (c) cure disease. {.) /'r/ivf/rdive or pro]>]iyl,aclAc treatment is an important subject which is guided not only by the family medical • adviser, but also by the State. It is essential in all zymotic c