Observations on Italian medical institutions and practice : with a brief comparative sketch of some points of French and English practice, and remarks on Italian climate / by Edwin Lee.

  • Lee, Edwin, -1870.
Date:
1831
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Observations on Italian medical institutions and practice : with a brief comparative sketch of some points of French and English practice, and remarks on Italian climate / by Edwin Lee. 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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    the system, or more commonly by the repeated application of leeches; the patient at the same time taking an acidulated beverage or a decoction of simple herbs', with, perhaps, an occasional dose of castor oil; so that although the continen- tal patient may lose as much or more blood in the aggregate, than the English patient, it is less calculated to produce the desired effect; while the neglect of the means of producing increased secretion from the bowels necessitates the more fre- quent abstraction of blood, and the patient, in the favorable cases, has to support a tedious convalescence. Another striking difference is in the treatment of continued fever. The disciples of Broussais see nothing but gastro- enterite as the cause of the general disturbance of the func- tions, and continue the application of leeches and the use of acidulated or emollient drinks, even when the fever has assumed the typhoid type. How can they reconcile the existence of inflammation of the stomach, with the benefit which is derived from active purgation in many cases, and with the recoveries which so frequently take place in the advanced stage of the disease, from the employment of tonic and stimulant remedies. Intermittents are considered by the followers of Broussais to depend on periodical irritation of the mucous membrane of the stomach and bowels; yet there is no more evidence of increased irritation of this membrane at the period of the pa- roxysm, than during the intermissions of the fever; nor can this theory be reconciled with the fact of bark being a speci- fic in intermittents, and as such it is used almost as univer- sally on the continent as in England. There exist also material differences between England and France in several points connected with surgical disease. One of the principal is the treatment of many local diseases by constitutional means, employed by Enghsh practitioners; such as the medical treatment of chronic inflammation in va- rious textures, cachectic diseases and ulcers, some tumors of the breast, chronic disease of the testicle, many nervous com- plaints, periosteal inflammation, diseases of the eyes ; con- stitutional irritation, either supervening on an operation or injury, or occurring during the progress of disease, as stone in the bladder, &c. In France and Italy, scarcely any medicine is given in the majority of surgical complaints; the means of relief being ge- nerally restricted to rest, the abstraction of blood, local ap- plications, or operation. Less attention is also paid to the establishment of a correct diagnosis in diseases of the joints than in England: in France the generic appellation of tumeurs blanches is almost uni-