Bacillary phthisis of the lungs / by Germain Sée ; translated and edited for English practitioners, by William Henry Weddell.

  • Sée, Germain, 1818-1896.
Date:
1885
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Bacillary phthisis of the lungs / by Germain Sée ; translated and edited for English practitioners, by William Henry Weddell. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    means destinée! to oppose the life and reproduction of tliese morbigenic microphytes. But already dissensions hâve begun, and are increasing, whilst eminent physicians query, and even proclaim the uselessness of the attempt, contenting themselves with the old dogma of contagion, because they tliink to recognize the mischief without being able to combat the contagion (we can neither treat nor cure a philosophie abstraction) ] because the discovery of the bacillus seems to them, good at most for making or completing a diagnosis ; because, in a Word, the doctrine will be useless, as the application to internai medicine must be without results. On the other hand, we see in the opposing camp the most ardent partisans of the micro- phytic theory advancing rapidly, perhaps even rashly, towards the research of necrobiosis of the bacillus, en- couiaged as they are by the marvellous examples which hâve been quoted in surgery and obstetrics, by the striking eftects which hâve been obtained in the treatment of vounds and puerperality. People cast stones at us medical practitioners because up to the présent we hâve not been so happy :—vœ victis ; but we shall not be the vanquished at the end, and the new path on which clinical medicine might and ought resolutely to enter will not be stérile. We arc not daunted by the mistakes of a first beginning and m reality the difficultés are much more considérable than m surgical or obstétrical science, where necrophytic treatment finds the parasite, so to speak, to hand In medicine the parasite, instead of resting on the surface as of a wound,has penetrated profoundly into the tissues, bron- ï kT°TfemW’or int0 the lung- You wiu a ack it with fumigations, nor even with intra-pulmonary injections of dangerous anti-virulent substances. The enemy m possession, and not about to enter the economy. We must attack it indirectlv on ri U/v , . uecuy, ancl to do 80 must împregnate