A practical treatise on the diseases of the liver and biliary passages / by William Thomson ... also, Clinical illustrations of diseases of the liver and spleen, by William Twining.
- Thomson, William, 1943-2017
- Date:
- 1842
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: A practical treatise on the diseases of the liver and biliary passages / by William Thomson ... also, Clinical illustrations of diseases of the liver and spleen, by William Twining. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by the University of Massachusetts Medical School, Lamar Soutter Library, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Lamar Soutter Library at the University of Massachusetts Medical School.
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![g PREFACE. rppe:—'< We are not awa^re, however, that there any grounds for believing that the treatment of the inflammatory affections of the liver pursued on the continent of Europe is less successful than that employed in this country ; and even could it be shown that such were the case, it would still remain to be determined whether this difference in the result of prac- tice was attributable to the less vigorous employment of the ordinary anti- phlogistic means of treatment, or to the neglect of mercury. Desirous of giving such a view of hepatic diseases and disorders as should embrace those in warm climates, in addition to the carefully re- corded summary of their nature and occurrence in temperate regions, as furnished in Dr. Thomson's admirable treatise, it has been thought ad- visable to enrich the present volume with the essays of Mr. Twining, of Bengal. These are on diseases both of the Liver and the Spleen ; and being of a clinical character they cannot fail to be specially instruc- tive and available to the student and practitioner of the Southern and Western States. Mr. Twining's experience is also adverse to the lavish and routine administration of mercury in ' bilious disorder' or ' hepatic derangements,' real or supposititious. He does not believe in any uniform controlling power of mercury upon the secretion of the liver. His criticism on the abuse of calomel in the treatment of diseases of children in India, on the plea of their depending on hepatic derangements, is but too applicable to a prevalent practice in the United States. Al- though, he says, the absolute necessity of employing calomel in the treatment of some stages of many of the acute diseases of children in this country [India] is acknowledged, it is lamentabletoobserve the vast injury that is inflicted on numbers of these poor, pale, unhealthy creatures, by the calomel discipline intended to rectify the state of the then biliary secre- tion, at the time that their systems are suffering from extreme debility and anemia, and when the power of the constitution to form healthy red blood is still farther impeded by the use of mercurials. Although we.are as yet but imperfectly acquainted with the functions of the Spleen, yet the frequency of its diseases and their origin, so often identical with those of hepatic diseases, as well as their connection with congestive fever, are so many causes why we should gratefully receive contributions on these heads of so valuable and clinical a nature as those given by Mr. Twining in the essay which concludes the present volume. Of the entire volume as now arranged and published for the first time, we are safe in saying, that it is one unequalled on the prime subject of which it treats, viz., Morbid States and Functions of the Liver and the Means of Cure. ^ t](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21197866_0008.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
