History of the cholera controversy with directions for the treatment of the disease / by Sir George Johnson.

Date:
1896
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: History of the cholera controversy with directions for the treatment of the disease / by Sir George Johnson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    with all the known facts of the disease, and with the established principles of physiology. Sir Thomas Watson, while President of the Eoyal College of Physicians in 1866, referred to it as “a sound as well as a most ingenious and important theory. In truth, it derives strong confirmation from the fact that it unlocks, like the true key, the whole of the pathological intricacies of the disease.” This is strong testimony from a great and wise man, but that which, to my mind, is still more satisfactory is the evidence which has been gradually accumulat- ing of the beneficial results of the evacuant treat- ment of cholera, especially in its early stages. What can be more conclusive than the fact, referred to in detail hereafter (p. 29), that in Liverpool* during the epidemic of 1866, out of several thousand cases of choleraic diarrhoea treated by laxatives not one passed into collapse or required removal to the hospital ? “ In every case relief was afforded ‘ quickly, safely, and pleasantly.’ ” No such evidence as this ever has been or can be given in support of the astringent treatment of the disease. Although this essay is mainly a history of past controversies, and not a complete treatise on the pathology and treatment of cholera, it will, I think, * “ On the Treatment of Cholera and Epidemic Diarrhosa,” by Dr. M‘Cloy and Dr. Kobertson : Med. Chir. Trans., vol. 1.