Copy 1, Volume 1

The works of Thomas Sydenham, M.D / Translated from the Latin edition of Dr. Greenhill, with a life of the author, by R.G. Latham.

  • Thomas Sydenham
Date:
1848-1850
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The works of Thomas Sydenham, M.D / Translated from the Latin edition of Dr. Greenhill, with a life of the author, by R.G. Latham. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    opening in the arm does the work of a windpipe. Moreover, I constantly insist, that whilst a pleurisy, if treated after the manner that I have just condemned, is one of the broadest and easiest of the ways to death, it is, under its proper method, as certainly and as safely destroyed as any other ailment, to say nothing about the short time taken up in destroying it. Never have I known any mischief from the large detraction of blood, though unskilful men may think otherwise. 13. I have often tried to think out some plan of cure for pleurisy, without such an expense of blood, either by means of resolving the humours, or of promoting expectoration. I have, however, failed in finding any treatment like the aforesaid. As for that, notwithstanding the unfavorable prognosis of Hippo- crates, in the case where the pleurisy is of the dry sort,’ I can always make it save the patient, independently of expectoration, so that the same bleedings shall let out the disease, and let in convalescence. 14. But as the chief cure in this disease consists in an operation which is too much in the hands of unskilful barber- surgeons (especially in country places remote from towns), there is frequently the danger to the unhappy patient, of the loss of a limb, or even of life from the pricking of a tendon. To meet this accident, I subjoin the following line of treatment. 15. When a patient is thus pricked he does not feel the pain till about twelve hours after the bleeding ; and that, not in the parts about the opening, but in the tract between it and the axille. This pain is most felt when the arm is extended. The immediate locality of the injury swells to about the size of a hazel-nut, and lets out a dribbling ichorous fluid, the discharge of which is preeminently diagnostic of a punctured tendon. I have seen with my own eyes that the proper treatment is as follows :— EK Roots of white lilies, Ziv. Boil to softness in two pounds of milk from the cow. Then take of Linseed, Oatmeal, aa ii). Strain the milk in which the roots were boiled, and boil therein the two sorts of meal, to the consistency of a cataplasm. Apply this night and morning to the affected parts. 1 At Enpat roy m Aevpir(iówv kai AnTvoTOL Xaderwrarat.—Coac, Pren., iii. [G.]