A therapeutic guide to alkaloidal-dosimetric-medication / by John M. Shaller, M.D.

  • Shaller, John M., 1856-1931.
Date:
1904
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A therapeutic guide to alkaloidal-dosimetric-medication / by John M. Shaller, M.D. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.

    69/436 (page 63)
    fever, and of jugulation are not advocated be- cause a few degrees of heat are detrimental to the organism. The pathologic condition which produces fever is the point of danger. It has been already shown that if the fever alone is apparently treated and controlled, the pathologic lesions themselves are acted upon. It will bear repeating. Treat the fever, apparently, which accompanies acute inflammatory diseases, and the diseases themselves will be cured. It sometimes happens that amorphous aconitine has no influence whatever in checking fever or in preventing its advancement. It seems in these cases to be inert, without producing the slight- est effect. There is hardly a medicine that has not a similar record. Opiates sometimes fail utterly to bring the slightest relief for the ex- cruciating pain of cancer, which may be quickly relieved by cicutine. Quinine sometimes fails to cure malarial fever. All remedies will some- times fail, even when they are most strongly indicated. Why, then, should not aconitine sometimes fail? When it does, there should al- ways be a strong suspicion of sepsis. Several times when aconitine had no effect upon a high temperature within twenty-four hours, sepsis was suspected, and later it was proved to be present. Aconitine is of no value in the treat- ment of septicemia. Remove the cause and the fever will disap- pear. Simple acute inflammations seem com- pelled to yield to the administration of amor- phous aconitine. This is more particularly true if treatment can be begun during the first twenty-