Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: On febrifuges / by C. Binz. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.
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![T 1 ON FEBRIFUGES. BY C. BINZ, M.D.,1 Professor at the University of Bonn. [Reprinted from The Practitioner for June 1876.] Quinine. We have seen that to alcohol belongs, not only the indisputable property of dilating the vessels of the skin, and thus promoting the irradiation of warmth in fever, hut, in all probability, that of checking the activity of the cells as well, and in this way directly diminishing the production of heat in the tissues. In quinine and salicylic acid we have antipyretics, which probably exhibit only the latter action. Nowhere was the neurotic theory of fever more clearly reflected than in the manner in which the action of quinine was formerly understood. Quinine was a tonic, nothing more nor less; that is to say, it gave the nervous system strength to resist the fever, and for that reason the latter disappeared, sometimes rapidly, sometimes slowly. Facts, however, all speak against this one-sided conception of the matter. Ague, for instance, is to he regarded as the fever in which quinine gives the most brilliant results. It arises from the absorption into the system of a specific poison which develops itself from decaying vegetation. If this poison circulates too long within the body, decomposition of the blood is the result. Among the phenomena presented by the disease, the “ neurotic ” febrile symptoms may be entirely wanting, while the appear- ances depending upon degenerative changes in the blood and 1 In the two preceding numbers, Lond. has been erroneously placed after Professor Binz’s name, on account of a misreading of the word Bonn.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b22446989_0005.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
