A dictionary of treatment, or, Therapeutic index : including medical and surgical therapeutics / by William Whitla.

  • Whitla, William, 1851-1933.
Date:
1896
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A dictionary of treatment, or, Therapeutic index : including medical and surgical therapeutics / by William Whitla. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    may (speaking generally) be said to be in such small amount as not to call for any special treatment. Where, however, more than a trace is pretty constantly detected, the physician should deter- mine the cause and treat it. If, as is common, the albumen appears as the result of defective assimilation of albuminoids, attention should be at once directed to the state of the digestive organs, and especially the liver ; and there is no more potent remedy in such cases as a strictly milk diet, with or without Pepsin. Home-made Koumiss, prepared by mixing £ pint of water, i pint of butter- milk and four pints of Fresh Milk, and 1 oz. Loaf Sugar, leaving in a warm place and shaking occasionally for 36 hours, will make a palatable draught, very suitable in many cases. Albuminuria occurring during febrile attacks, zymotic diseases, inflammatory affections, &c, will yield to the remedies suitable for the primary disorder. When depending upon obstruction to the circulation, as in valvular affections or cirrhosis, the albumen will disappear upon the removal of the cause when possible. Cardiac tonics and diuretics, by strengthening the heart muscle and stimulating the renal blood-vessels, may cause its disappearance. The wet pack is very serviceable in such cases. Arsenic and Iron, separately or combined, are of great value in the treatment of chronic albuminuria, especially when the drain of albumen has produced a marked effect upon the blood. Iron affords the best results in albuminuria, depending upon a morbid state of the blood as in scurvy, pyaemia, and hospital gangrene. The albuminuria of adolescence, or so-called intermittent or functional albuminuria, generally yields readily to rest in bed and a strict milk diet for a few weeks. In those cases where the albumen appears after physical exercise, Yeo lays stress upon the importance of limiting this to several very short walks, and forbids all athletics and animal food. Sexual excesses, smoking, over-feeding, brain-worry, exposure to cold, and other possible causes must be guarded against. It is hardly necessary to remind the student that albuminuria, depending upon discharges finding their way into the urine from the urethra, prostate, bladder, or pelvis of the kidney, can only be treated by surgical methods directed to the diseased conditions in these localities. As a rule, the broad state- ment may be accepted as true that no drug possesses the specific power of markedly causing diminution in the quantity of albumen, and it is better for the physician to attack the cause than to lose time in administering the usual list of mineral and vegetable astringents. Moreover, some authorities affirm that their use is positively injurious. Caffeine, Lime Water, Copaiba, Fuchsin, Gallic and Tannic Acids, Glonoin, Hydrastis, Acetate of Lead, Ergot, Cantharides, Alum, Chloride of Gold, Chloral, Chloride of Sodium, 'J turpentine, and a host of other remedies have each, in somebody's experience, been found to markedly diminish the amount of albumen ; but, when tested fairly, have been generally found to fail.