Hints for invalids visiting Southern health resorts / by W.H. Geddings.

  • Geddings, Wm. H. (William H.), 1838-1892
Date:
1879
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Hints for invalids visiting Southern health resorts / by W.H. Geddings. 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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    valids they are called upon to attend. I say peculiar, be- cause the practice of the health resort physician differs in many respects from that of the family attendant, who, through long and intimate acquaintance, is thoroughly cognizant of the mental as well as physical idiosyncracies of his patients. With the physician at a health resort, the case is entirely different: he is constantly called to people who are perfect strangers to him, and to gain their confi- dence requires an amount of tact that can only be acquired by long experience. Each resort has its own peculiar .clientele, and the constant recurrence of the same class of cases makes the physician more or less of a specialist, thus possibly increasing his fitness for the position he occupies. He is necessarily better acquainted with the peculiarities of the climate in which he lives than the home physician, and therefore more competent to advise the patient as to his mode of life, what precautions to observe to guard against endemic diseases, when to remove to another resort, and when to return home. I am often told by an invalid that his physician has ad- vised him to throw away all medicines and to rely entirely upon the air for his cure, a piece of advice, which aside from its palpable absurdity, is often fraught with the most serious consequences to the patient. A diarrhoea is neg- lected, profuse coliquative sweats remain unchecked, or the patient may be allowed to waste away with hectic, any and all of which might perhaps have been remedied by timely and judicious treatment. The physician who gives his patient such advice forgets that climate, notwithstanding its manifold good effects, is after all but one agent in the treatment of disease, and is like one who, having charge of a case of typhoid fever, confines his efforts to the reduction of temperature to the neglect of food, stimulants and other useful procedures. Let such remember the oft-quoted
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