On the relation between therapeutics and pathology : with especial reference to some forms of cardiac, renal, and nervous diseases : a course of lectures delivered at the Royal College of Physicians in the spring of 1853 / by George Johnson.

  • Johnson, George, 1818-1896.
Date:
1853
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the relation between therapeutics and pathology : with especial reference to some forms of cardiac, renal, and nervous diseases : a course of lectures delivered at the Royal College of Physicians in the spring of 1853 / by George Johnson. 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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    0 supposed to indicate an inflammatory condition of the brain —cases of hydroceplialoid disease, as they have been called by Dr. Marshall Hall, who was, I believe, the first to publish an account of the affection in question. Dr. Gooch’s valuable essay (a) on this subject is so well known, that I scarcely need refer to it, except for the purpose of recommending it to the notice of any one who, perchance, may not have met with it. The mode of determining the true nature and the appropriate treatment of these cases, is to observe, not only the heaviness of the head and the drowsiness, but also the accompanying symptoms, and the previous history of the child. We are to take care, as Dr. Gooch advises, “ that a drowsy child, who is languid, feeble, cool, or even cold, with a quick weak pulse, should not be treated by bleeding, starving, and purging, like a drowsy child, who is strong, plethoric, has a flushed face, and a heated skin.” When, in addition to the symptoms of exhaustion before mentioned, we learn, as we often shall on inquiry, that the child has been recently weaned, or that, from some cause or other its food has disagreed, that the bowels have been disordered and relaxed, or that the patient’s strength has been reduced by active medicine or by leeching, little doubt will remain as to the nature of the case, and as little as to the necessity for nutritious food, for stimulants, and for tonics. I shall have frequent occasion to insist upon the importance of directing attention to the remote causes of disease, as a means of determining both its true pathology and its appro- priate treatment. I purpose now to illustrate the connexion between patho- logical science and rational therapeutics, by a consideration of hypertrophy of the heart. It was formerly much more than at present the custom to speak, and even to write of hypertrophy of the heart, as if it were a disease per se, against which remedial measures \Vere to be directed, without consideration of the cause of this structural change, or the possible consequences of in- judicious attempts to remove it. We are not surprised to (a) “On Some Symptoms in Children, Erroneously Attributed to Con- KebfetV’of the Brain.”