New theory and old practice in relation to medicine and certain industries : being an analysis of current literature of these subjects / by C.A. Gordon.

Gordon, Charles Alexander, 1821-1899.

Date:: 1886

Credit: New theory and old practice in relation to medicine and certain industries : being an analysis of current literature of these subjects / by C.A. Gordon. 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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$1885.) [This drug, for a time, vaunted as being equal in efficiency to the Eussian bath, was soon afterwards declared to have no curative effect in the disease.] Among other remedies to which a trial, though unsuccessful, has been given, are venesection, opium, belladonna, mercurials, iron, arsenic, nitrate of silver, camphor, musk, cantharides, turpentine, tobacco, nitrate of lead, cuprum ammoniatum, hydrocyanic acid, galvanism, electro-magnetism, strychnine, oxygen, nitrous oxide, chlorine, guaiac, and nearly a hundred and fifty others. (Aitkin.) Injection of warm water into the veins has been unsuccessfully employed. The root of the Alisma plantago (water plantain) has been stated to be successfully administered, both in Russia and in Italy. The root is grated, and being spread on bread and butter is thus taken, with the result that if used before distinctive symtoms appear it prevents the occurrence, if after they have developed it stops them and cures the patient. (See Evening News, Dec. 23, 1885.) [The use of Alisma plantago in the treatment of hydrophobia has been known in England for the past 150 years. It occurs in an MS., written by Thomas Drake, of Feltwell, and the recipe has never been kept secret.] {^Morning Post, January 5, 1886.) Had the remedy been remarkable for success, doubtless its writers would have been acknowledged. Cannabis Indica and Calabar bean have had their advocates. In France the employment of garlic has been revived as a specific in hydropho- bia, the reputation of the drug in this respect dating from the year 1560. Instances are on record in which to all appearance the development of hydrophobia was checked by the excision of the part bitten, several days after the receipt of the injury, that is, before the eighth or ninth, as mentioned by Blaine on the dog. In that work the statement occurs that local irritation occurring in the seat of the wound was a sure prelude of the virus being about to become active, and that excision might then avert the threatened attack. Dr. Mackenzie, C.B. met with a case in which (^as already mentioned) this actually happened. But there are on record some cases of hydrophobia in which recovery took place, and was due, not to any particular method of treatment, but to simple resolution on the part of the patient to conquer the disease, after its symptoms had become manifest. Such a case was that of Dr- Barthelemy, described by himself. (Dr. Tuke, InjliLence of Treatment on the Body, 1884, vol. ii., p. 236.) Another remarkable case of the the same kind was that of the celebrated Andrew Crosse. (Memoirs, p. 126.) He compelled himself to walk, after the attack had set in, and finally recovered. {Zoophilist, January 1886, p. 155.) Spontaneous$