On the subject of priority in the medication of the larynx and trachea / by Horace Green.

  • Horace Green
Date:
1854
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the subject of priority in the medication of the larynx and trachea / by Horace Green. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    obliged, for several years, to relinquish altogether his official duties. The similarity of the symptoms in these two cases, the persistence of the disease, and the utter failure of all treatment to benefit my patients, called my attention, very decidedly, to all these points. It was in the first years of my professional life, and, until then, I had not lost my faith in the certainty of the healing art. From this time, I set about my inquiry into the nature of a disease whose pathology and treatment could not, I was confident, be found in the books. For this purpose, when I could leave my country practice, I visited, at different periods, the principal hospitals in the United States. I addressed letters of inquiry, on the subject of this disease, to eminent medical men, as some of them, now living, will remember. I col¬ lected together the history of a large number of cases of the disease, then called “ Clergyman’s sore throat,” “ Throat ail,” &c.; and from all these, and from subsequent observations, I adduced those views which I have elsewhere given, of the nature and pathology of “ Follicular Disease of the Air-Passages,”—views which, in this connection, I may be permitted to say, have been since adopted by almost all pathologists who have written on the subject. In 1838, two years after my removal to this city, I visited the hospitals of Europe ; and one of the principal reasons for making this tour was, to ascertain from the medical savans in Europe, if any discoveries or improvements had been made by them in the pathology and treatment of laryngeal and pulmonary diseases. It was whilst absent at this time, as I have before stated in my writings, that I obtained, in a conversation with Sir James Johnson, of London, who has since died, the first idea I had ever entertained of the possibility of entering the cavity of the larynx with medical agents. At this interview, in alluding to the difficulties and the uncertainty which attended the treatment of laryngeal disease, Dr. Johnson- intimated that all modes of treatment would fail us, until appropriate thera¬ peutic remedies could be applied directly to the lining membrane of these parts. This observation, in connection with my past experience of the nature of the disease, and especially of its local character, made on my mind an abiding impression. As I state in the introduction of my work, I returned home from Europe the middle of November, 1838. On the 26th of November, ten days after my arrival in New York, the Rev. Mr. Tilden, of Rutland, Vermont, who had suffered many months under follicular laryngitis, came under my care, and was treated by topical applications of the nitrate of silver to the pharynx and larynx. The history of this case I find recorded in full in my case book at the time; and, moreover, Mr. Tilden still lives and will testify to these facts. In the course of 1839, I treated many cases of laryngeal disease, by topical medication; and in November, 1839, I reported before the “New York Medical and Surgical Society” (of which Dr. Adams was
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