Fallacies of the faculty, being the spirit of the chronothermal system. In a series of lectures / [Samuel Dickson].

  • Dickson, Samuel, 1802-1869
Date:
1839
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Fallacies of the faculty, being the spirit of the chronothermal system. In a series of lectures / [Samuel Dickson]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    85/310 (page 81)
    not only established by the heats, and the remissions and exacerbations of the above case, but also by the remedies that proved successful in its treatment,—horse exercise, and change of air having cured agues, which had resisted every kind of internal medicine, bark, among the number;—so that bark is no more a specific for ague, than for any other disease. Were you to judge solely from the experience of the above case, in which the bark not only failed, but .actually aggravated the symptoms you might be led to conclude, that it ought never to be exhibited in con¬ sumption ; but you will remember that the same is every day the effect of its employment in ague,—in which latter disease, we therefore dismiss it for arsenic, opium, iron, or some other agent, which may better answer the peculiar habit of the patient, and which we cannot know until you try. Never take an estimation of a remedy from its suc¬ cess or failure in one case. In the 13th volume of the Medical Gazette, you will find the detailed case of a man labouring under Consumption, for whom the gentleman who narrates it prescribed generous diet and quinine. Dr. Marshall Hall examined the patient with the stethoscope, and pronounced an unfavourable pro¬ gnostic. Even after commencing the quinine, and when a considerable improvement had taken place in the appear¬ ance of the patient, Dr, Hall still held that the case would be fatal;—“ again the stethoscope was consulted—again it ut¬ tered the same sepulchral responses; and according to it, the poor patient ought by this to have been moribund, his pulse, good looks, muscular firmness, appetite and high spirits notwithstanding. I need hardly add, (says the nar¬ rator of this case,) that our judicious friend the doctor, was much surprised, as well as gratified, to witness his appear¬ ance—alluding to the change after the cure had taken place. Justice to Dr. Hall compels us to say, that in another number of the same journal, he questions the cure. But it is enough for our present purpose, that he admits suspension, and if this suspension was continued for a series of years, it is not worth while to enquire whether the patient was cured or not. In fact, the matter would resolve itself into a mere dispute about words. G 2