Remarks on the antecedents and treatment of consumption / by Charles Drysdale, M.D.

  • Charles Robert Drysdale
Date:
1865
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Remarks on the antecedents and treatment of consumption / by Charles Drysdale, M.D. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

    5/18 (page 1)
    REMARKS ON THE ANTECEDENTS AND TREATMENT OF CONSUMPTION. 0- liV order to speak of the treatment of consumption, it is abso- lutely essential, in my opinion, that we be well acquainted with the antecedents of the disease. It has been well said by a great physician, that the greatest steps in modern medicine have consisted in discovering the laedentia and removing them ; as, for example, when it was discovered tliat the fearfiirscourge of scurvy wliich destroyed so many of our brave seamen but a few years ago, in the French wars, was owing to an error in diet. Dr. Law tells us that, in 1780, Admiral Geary's squadrons after a cruise of ten weeks, had 2,i00 men affected by scurvy.' There are, of course, cases where the discovery of the causes of a disease are but of slight consequence to its correct treatment. For example, a broken limb may be bandaged up without our caring much how it was broken, or a cataract extracted with the same idea. But, in the case of phthisis, tlie right treatment of the disease is, I am convinced, so completely involved in the knowledge of the accidents which have produced it, as to render It essential that these be well studied, before approachino- the practical question, How are we to treat a particular case of%on- sumption ? Hereditary Transmission.—Lu»o\ says half of the cases of phthisis are hereditary; Piorry, one-fourth ; Euysch, four- fifths. Dr. Walshe says that about one-fourth of his phthi- sical patients had a father or mother or both parents similarly affected. Dr. Edward Smith's cases gave about one-fourth also. One of the most frequent parental antecedents of phthisis is scrofula. This is vouched for by Lugol and Hardy. Children aged parents are liable to phthisis; and the off- spring of very young parents, according to some authors, are also liable. Excessive sexual zndulgciice, or mastiorbation, in tlie parents are stated to be frequent causes of consumption in the offs])ring ; in fact, generative debility, however caused. [ideni'pcrance.—AmowQ diseases attributed by medical autliuiities to the excessive use of alcoholic liquors, it is said that the children of drunkards, and even of gouty parents, aro liable to consumption.