Dr Todd and the late member for Ashton : fatal effect of the stimulating treatment of disease (in a letter to the editor of the Medical Circular, February 29, 1860) : to which is added a short account of Dr Todd's professional career, and an epitome of his stimulating doctrine, with an answer to the fallacious charges brought against the author / A.B. Granville.

  • Augustus Granville
Date:
1860
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Dr Todd and the late member for Ashton : fatal effect of the stimulating treatment of disease (in a letter to the editor of the Medical Circular, February 29, 1860) : to which is added a short account of Dr Todd's professional career, and an epitome of his stimulating doctrine, with an answer to the fallacious charges brought against the author / A.B. Granville. 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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    morality, Dr Tudd was unassailable. And with regard to the extent of his practice, a positive statement was made to me since the appearance of my pamplilet by an old acquaintance of mine, and a warm friend of the late Professor, that his practice had only been of consequence for the last two or tlu'ee years, in one of which he had realised eight thousand pounds. No doubt he deserved it, for he worked hard and incessantly. Unfortunately, the applause of his admiring students and pupils (and what lecturer, except a very dull one, has not very many such ?) spoiled him,—acted like his own stimulating pra<j- tice on his sensorinm,—muddled it, and led him to con- ceive a system of theoretical and pmctical medicine, of which one may, with the French biographer of a much more celebrated physician, John Brown, when s])eakiug of his stlienic and asthenic plan (which, castrated of the first of those principles, the King's College Piofu.'ssor has adopted as liis own), rightly exclaim thus— Ce fut une fmit ^norme qui tend a faire retrograde!' la 2'>hysiologie et la patholoyie* And what is this faute ^norvuT' Dr Todd himself shall state it in his own words, as they are to be found in the preface to his last series of lectures already alltided to, On the Treatment of Acute Diseases. If one may venture a suggestion respecting the future of pathology and practice founded on it, it A\'0uld be that a time is not far distant when all men who jimctise medi- cine in a scientific spirit, and divested from the trammels of routine, will discard the distinction of acute inflamma- tion and acute disease in general, as to asthenic and sthenic—tliat all these maladies will be regarded as more * I wonlfl strongly recommend to the youthful and ardent adniirc-rs of Dr Todd's practice to peruse this admirable biogi'ai)liy of Ur Jolin Brown, and the exposition it contains, as well as confutation of his sthenic and asthenic system of medicine. In that very system tlioy will find all tliat their own professor has given them as liis own original idcius, i-niijin'ssing only that part whi('h admitted sthenic di.<;easo8 to be treated by bleeding, purgatives, and emetics. Dr Todd denied the existence of such diseases, and rejocti'd the remedies a.s impi'ojier,—a doctrine, by tlic bye, wliich has cost him his life. Monsieur Coutanccau, the biograplier of Ihown, ha.s most forcibly ex])laiiicd how such doctrines, absurd j)i'.r se though they he, nevertlieless acquire a soi't of popular and temjiorary i)re8tigc which ••arries along all tliose who live in tlie dicta mm/istn, and never read or think fi )■ thcnisclvi's.