The modern practice of physic : exhibiting the characters, causes, symptoms, prognostics, morbid appearances, and improved method of treating the diseases of all climates / by Robert Thomas, M.D., of Salisbury.

  • Robert Thomas
Date:
1813
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The modern practice of physic : exhibiting the characters, causes, symptoms, prognostics, morbid appearances, and improved method of treating the diseases of all climates / by Robert Thomas, M.D., of Salisbury. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.

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    wise in the hot fit- He tells us he has observed, that, if taken during the intermissions, it had not the least effect either in preventmg or mi- tigating the succeeding paroxysm ; when given in the cold fit, it once or twice seemed to remove it ; but that when aaministered half an hour after the commencement of the hot fit, it generally afforded immediate relief. When given in the hot fit, he observed the following effects to follow : 1st, It shortened and abated the fit ; and this with more certainty than an ounce of the bark was found to affect the disease. 2d, It generally gave a sensible relief to the head, took off' the burning heat of the fever, and occasioned a profuse sweat. This sweat was attended with an agreeable softness of the skin, instead of the burning sensation which affects patieiits sweating in the hot fit, and was always more copious than in those who had not taken opium. Sd, It often produced a soft and refreshing sleep to a patient tonured in the agonies of the fever, from which he avf aked bathed in sweat, and in a great measure free from all complaints. The Doctor has always observed, that the effects of opium are more uniform and constant in intermitting fevers, than in any other disease, and are there more quick and sensible than those of any other medicine. An opiate thus given soon after the commencement of the hot fit, by abating the violence, and lessening the duration of the fever, preserves the constitution so entirely uninjured, that, since he used opium in agues, a dropsy or jaundice has seldom attacked any of his patients in those diseases. When opium did not immediately abate the symptoms of the fever, it never increased their violence: on the contrary, most patients reaped some benefit from an opiate given in the hot fit, and many of them bore a larger dose at that time than tliey could at any other. Dr. Lind offers it as his opinion, that opium in this disease, is the best preparative for the bark ; as it not only produces a complete intermission, in which case alone that remedy ca.n be safely adminis- tered, but occasions such a salutary and copious evacuation by sweat, as generally to render a much less quantity of bark requisite. When we obtain an intermission, the Peruvian bark is to be given during the intervals, in large doses. On£ or two drachms of the pow- der may be taken every hour, if the stomach Avill bear so much, as the benefits to be expected from this medicine greatly depend on a large quantity being administered in a short space of time; for five or six ounces of bark taken in a fevr days, will be attended v/ith a much better effect than perhaps as many pounds taken in the course of some weeks. If it will not sit easy on the stomach in substance, we must be content to substitute a decoction or infusion of it, or Vv-e may give the extract,* joining a few drops of sulphuric acid. Where the intermissions between the paroxysms are long, as in the tertian and quartan types, we should delay giving the bark until within eight hours or so, of the accession of the cold fit. * ]J. Eytvact. Cir.choii. gr. xv. Decoct. Ejusdem. ^jfs-. Tinct. Cort. Anra'nt. ^]. M. fr. Hi^Lifcns 2c1a hora?r.n:endns>
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