An historical essay on medicated inhalation : and letters on consumption, asthma, bronchitis, sore throat, loss of voice, nasal catarrh, weak lungs, etc. etc. / by N.B. Wolfe.

  • Wolfe, N. B. (Napoleon Bonaparte)
Date:
1862
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An historical essay on medicated inhalation : and letters on consumption, asthma, bronchitis, sore throat, loss of voice, nasal catarrh, weak lungs, etc. etc. / by N.B. Wolfe. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

    8/70
    of them to be used in fumigation, three times a day for ten days. He also gives various prescriptions for cura ulcereim pectoris et cura Phthisis, and remarks that fumigations are administered in this disease, and certain dissiccutive and cleansing substances with which a fumigation is made, by means of a tube or siphon. Both Celsus and Plinv occupy a prominent place in the litera- ture of medicine, though it is questionable whether either of these sivans devoted much more time to the science of medicine than was necessary to give them a knowledge of disease, merely as an adjunct to their general education. Celsus speaks, however, of Phihisis, (consumption) as beginning in the head, and descending to the lungs ; and describes the stage of ulceration as being at- tended with fever, cough and expectoration of purulent and bloody matter, and says : when ulceration takes place in the anterior part of the fauces, physicians apply cataplasms and moist fermentations externally, and h:>t vapors into the mouth. Pliny, while enumera- ting a number of specifics for the cure of consumption, speak3 particularly of the pectoral qualities of gum amoniac, and praises all the woods which give an abundance of resinous odor while burning ; the vapors arising from which, he says, are more benefi- cial to the consumptive, than a voyage to Egypt, or a course of milk in the mountains. He mentions, among other materials used in the composition of the fumigating bolusees, dried cow-dung, bullocks' horns burnt and powdered, the fumes to be drawn through a reed. Among all the writers in medical science, whose names have been transmitted from ancient to modern times, there has been none around which so many intellectual splendors cluster, as that of the immortal Galen ; who, by the force of his genius, acquired an influence over the minds of men, which has outlived the muta- tions of time, and all the revolutions of opinion which have dawned and died in the empire of mind for centuries. Let us pause before his impressive shade, and digress but one moment from our subject. The range of his philosophic and professional studies was most extensive ; he traveled through various coun- tries in search of medical lore, but it was principally at Alexan- dria, in his day still the most famous school of medicine, that he acqu:red his reputation as a scholar. While residing in Alexan- dria, he was invited to Rome by the Emperor Aurelius, and sub-