On hydrophobia and its 'treatment,' especially by the hot-air bath, commonly termed the Bouisson remedy / by Victor Horsley.

  • Victor Horsley
Date:
1888
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On hydrophobia and its 'treatment,' especially by the hot-air bath, commonly termed the Bouisson remedy / by Victor Horsley. 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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    symptoms, most of which resembled those of hydrophobia ; but, from the account he gives of his trouble, his diagnosis that he was really suffering from that disease may well be called in question. Acting on the belief that he was so stricken, he entered a hot-air bath with the idea of terminating its existence, but he gradually became calmer, and soon the symptoms totally disappeared. Struck by these cir- cumstances, he strenuously advocated the use of the hot-air bath in hydrophobia, and published cases in which he thought he had success- fully combated the disease. He stated that if the patient were placed in the bath on the first day that the symptoms manifested themselves, a cure would be infallibly obtained. If only on the second day, that the cure was possibly uncertain, and that the treatment was hopeless if begun as late as the third day. Since Dr. Bouisson’s papers were published, many patients, actually or supposititiously suffering from hydrophobia, or in whom the occurrence of the disease seemed possible, have been treated on this plan. All those patients who have been reported by respectable practitioners to have been suffering from genuine hydrophobia have died, in spite of the Bouisson treatment. Instances of its employment by such practitioners will be referred to presently. In spite of the failure of this procedure an attempt was made in the recent epidemic of 1885, and subsequently, to secure its trial by the profession. As might be supposed, its adoption is princi- pally urged by those who are, for obvious reasons, opposed to the pro- gress of medical science, the paid antivivisectionist agitators. These persons spread broadcast glowing misrepresentations of the system, and raise, as I have myself seen, many false hopes, and so cause much pain in the minds of the patient and his friends. For instance, one of their agents, a Rev. J. P. Wright, made the assertion that “Eighty cases had been already cured by this method, and only one doubtful case was chronicled.” [The Zoophilist, January, 1888, p. 152.] It is deeply to be regretted that certain medical practitioners—to wit, Dr. Bell Taylor, of Nottingham, and Dr. Clarke, of Cinpham, have ccun-