An inquiry into the reasons and results of the prescription of intoxicating liquors in the practice of medicine / by F.R. Lees.

  • Frederic Richard Lees
Date:
1866
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An inquiry into the reasons and results of the prescription of intoxicating liquors in the practice of medicine / by F.R. Lees. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    cup of cold xcater from a cViolera patient. With daylight came a kind judijious medical friend, who, instead of goading me with physic [what else can physic do ?] sustained me with food [per injection as well as by mouth]. With the result I had every reason to be satisfied. Dangerous reaction, i.e. high fever, with cerebral symptoms of coma, I have seen ; but only when Art, coming not to aid hut to thicart nature, has interfered with her eliminatory processes bv the too free use of opium, astringents, and such like remedies. In such cases [of Art-reaction] we must have recourse to free purgation, apply ice to the head, and restore the action of the skin by the wet-sheet, cold- sponging, and the like. Dr S. Wiles, of Guy's Hospital, does in the Lancet, in sub- stance concede all contended for in 'Doctors, Drugs, and Drink'; and that in language so plain, that it is due to the Profession and the Public that I should reproduce its salient points :— First, I beg of you to unlearn one error—that the body is liable to certain special diseases, and that for these there are particular rnnedies. The idea seems to be, that persons are suddenly struck down without any apparent rea- son (or from ' cold ')—and that if these maladies are not speedily cured they become chronic. .Every system of quackery is founded on a belief of this kind, the quack having no other object than to pander to popular 'feeling' or 'igno- rance.' Our poor patients ask, ' What is good for spasms or the bile ?' In much the same way I regard the ' cure for pneumonia,' ' cure for fever,' and ^cure for phthisis.' The fact is, medical men are but human, and gain half their ideas from their own instincts, as much as by actual knowledge, and thus we must confess to many errors which our understanding disallows. For instance, it is an inherent weakness to believe that our ailments have come about by a casual or accidental cause [which is 910 cause]. We shrink from the idea of any inheeent weakness—that within is the source of most of our infirmities. [The internal concause, after all, being an efi'ect, must have had its generating circumstances ; being, in most cases, of slow though sure growth from small, unnoted but repeated influences.] 'Thus it is, that,in our daily obituaries, we witness how A VERT VULGAR DISEASE is GLOSSED OVER BY FRIENDS, and its place is taken by ' congestion of the lungs or brain,' or even liver—whatever that may mean ! I want you clearly to see vjhat the popular Pathology is, and this may help you to get rid of those erroneous views which have too long had sway in the profession. The fact is, there are/eic persons who approach a standard of health [not for want of the DHIXK-CURE, at any rate !]—most depart from it in various directions • and thus the liabilities to particular morbid changes vary greatly in difi'erent constitutions. Some, from both, may be always ailing, always in the doctor's hands; and he, or rather she, may consider herself fortunate if she do not fall in the way of that medical man who thinks, by administering every medicine in the Pharmacopjeia, he may restore her to a normal typical condition!.. I mention these popular fallacies, for it is we who are assisting to maintain them. We laugh at them in their grossest form, but still hug them to ourselves when wrapped up by a few technicalities, Look at what happens daily among our out-patients. A tailor, or shoemaker, comes for something to * cure his indigestion.' Wo give him some medicine, and »«nd him off. It does him no good, and why ? What are you endeavourinq to do ? Nature h&a given a man a stomach to be well-used, and he sits doubling it up all day, and preventing it performing its functions, and he cornea
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