Then and now : a discourse introductory to the forty-third course of lectures in the Jefferson Medical College of Philadelphia / by S.D. Gross.

  • Gross, Samuel D. (Samuel David), 1805-1884.
Date:
1867
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Then and now : a discourse introductory to the forty-third course of lectures in the Jefferson Medical College of Philadelphia / by S.D. Gross. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Las been laid under contribution; chemistry has lent its power of analysis and refinement; and physicians, in quite a number of instances, as in the cases of Fountain and Hammond in our own country, have not hesitated to perform dangerous experiments upon their own persons to test the virtues of the new candidate for favor and adoption into the family of medicines. Time would fail me if I were to attempt even an enumeration of the more important additions to our modern Pharmacopoeia. The most valuable, unquestionably, are the preparations of iodine, potassium, bromine, iron, aconite, and veratrum viride, of the efficacy of which, in controlling morbid action, no one not fami¬ liar with their use can form any just estimate. The discovery of cod-liver oil has been a great boon. Employed freely in the earlier stages of phthisis, there is probably no remedy which ex¬ ercises so salutary an influence over that ruthless disease in ward¬ ing off the fatal issue. One of the most remarkable discoveries of the age is that medicines introduced into the subcutaneous cellular tissue act much more speedily and forcibly than when taken by the stomach or the rectum. The operation is performed with a small pocket syringe, the nozzle of which terminates in a very sharp point, so that the skin may be easily penetrated without pain. A pa¬ tient racked by sciatica, gout, or cancer is relieved in a few minutes by the hypodermic use of a third to a half grain of mor¬ phia. One grain of quinine thrown under the skin makes a much stronger impression in warding off an attack of malarial fever than five times that quantity introduced into the stomach. The probability is that we shall be able, ere long, to purge and vomit our patients by this simple and elegant method of medication, whose practical history extends back no further than 1859, when attention was first directed to it by Mr. Charles Hunter, in the London “Medical Times and Gazette” for that year. In no department of the healing art has there been greater pro¬ gress, with sound, healthful improvement, during the period under review, than in the treatment of diseases of the uterus, a class of affections really very little understood, even by the most enlight¬ ened practitioners, in the first third of the present century. The change has, indeed, been marvellous. Our knowledge of these disorders, so frequent in their occurrence, and in their conse¬ quences so harassing and distressing, was, until within a compara¬ tively recent period, in a great degree conjectural. The only aid invoked in their investigation was the sense of touch, and even that was often rejected by the over-sensitive female from motives of false delicacy. The result may easily be guessed. As was the diagnosis, so was the treatment; if the one was erroneous, how could the other be correct? It is an axiom in medicine not to prescribe for a malady before we have ascertained its true nature and seat; and although this is not always practicable, yet the rule is not the less true. The marvellous changes here referred to are all due, mainly, if
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