On the treatment of lupus / by J.L. Milton.

  • Milton, J. L. (John Laws), 1820-1898
Date:
1866
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the treatment of lupus / by J.L. Milton. 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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    loDg-coutiniied doses of mercury, either in the shape of calomel and opium, or the mercury mixture recommended by him ; he also gives cod-liver oil. In the paper describing this treatment, an attempt is made to explain the great success of mercury in this complaint, by su])posiug there may have been a syphilitic taint, a point to which I shall presently revert. Dr. Anthony Todd Thompson, who used to be very successful in the treatment of lupus, relied upon iodine, arsenic, and biuiodide of mercury, with the occasional use of cod- liver oil and quinine. When he began the treatment, if there was anaemia he gave the patient cod-liver oil for ten or fourteen days, with iodide of iron ; he then ordered an altei’ative treatment with biniodide of arsenic j and when this could not be borne, he gave the liquor potassae arsenitis. He found conium very useful, and often touched the edges of the ulcers with nitric acid or a solution of nitrate of silver, two or three di’achms to an ounce. If pale, un- healthy, fungous granulations sprang up, he employed ointment of the iodide of sulphur, or a very weak ointment of the biniodide of arsenic, or of either of the iodides of mercury. Four cases of the eating form of lupus are recorded in his work,''' in which the above treatment was adopted with perfect success. Two of these were indeed cured very quickly, one in twenty-eight, the other in thirty- four days, and though one is only reported cured at the end of half a year, yet as the mean* time is only eighty days for each case, the treatment must be regarded as unusually successful; indeed, I do not understand lupus being even affected by internal means in four weeks. These cases afford as strong evidence as I could wish to bring for- Avard, of the difficulty there is in getting at the exact state of the case in such matters. Dr. Thompson’s practice would naturally afford many instances of lupus; he was a most successful practitioner and an earnest truthful man; not less so his editor. Dr. Parkes; yet all Ave have to guide us is a brief analysis of four cases, none of them of any great severity or calculated to give us any idea of the usual yro- yortion of cures to failures, the only statistical results Avorth knoAV- ing. Till we have evidence of this kind, men Avill always be able to draAv from our written records almost any meaning they like, and gloom, hope, or despair Avill predominate according to the convictions of the reader, not the strict facts of the case. * Monthly Journal, February, 1860, p. 149. Also Br.aithwaite’s “Eetrospcct,” vol. xxi. p. 189.