Experiments to determine the precise effect of bromide of potassium in epilepsy / by T. S. Clouston, M.D.

  • Clouston, T. S. (Thomas Smith), 1840-1915.
Date:
[1868]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Experiments to determine the precise effect of bromide of potassium in epilepsy / by T. S. Clouston, M.D. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    boon to humanity conferred. It is surely possible for the physicians of asylums to combine their opportunities for observing the treatment of disease in one vast and systematic effort, all working on the same plans, and all adopting the same conditions. What accuracy might we not acquire in our notions as to the effects of morphia given in melancholia, if the drug was tried in the case of every melancholic patient in all our asylums for a year, and an accurate record of the results drawn up ? The idea may seem in many respects chimerical and absurd, but it seems questionable if much ac- curacy in therapeutics will ever be attained until something of the kind is done. There is no single man who has oppor- tunity sufficient to solve such a problem, except by careful experiments extending over years, and we know how difficult it is for a physician to continue careful experiments over long periods. And surely this exact, scientific, and statistical age will not allow the present state of utter doubt to continue much longer without making at least an effort to disj)el it. We require to know the full and true result of giving drugs in eveiy case, and not merely in a few favourable cases which may be natural recoveries. Possessed with these ideas, and feeling conscience-smitten oftentimes at the uncertain way m which I gave drugs, and thinking that the action of the bromide of potassium in epilepsy, and that of opium in mania, afforded as simple fields of observation as could be found, I performed some experi- ments with those medicines. In regard to the bromide of potassium, my objects were to ascertain its precise effect: 1st—On the number of the fits. 2nd—On the character of the fits. 3rd—On the patient's mental condition between the fits. 4th—On the patient's weight, temperature, pulse, and general health. 5th—On the different varieties of the disease. 6th—To ascertain the most effectual dose for therapeutic objects. 7th—To determine the limits to which it may be pushed as to time and quantity. 8th—To find out the length of time to which its effects extend when it is stopped. To effect these objects I had all my male epileptic patients—29 in number—weighed, and took their morning and evening temperature and pulse every week for a month, having the number of fits recorded and the general mental state. This was when on their ordinary diet, and taking no medicine. I then gave them all bromide of potassium three times a day, one dose after each meal. I began with five grain doses, being fifteen grains per day. I gave that quantity for three weeks, increasing the dose at the end of that time to ten grains, continuing this for three weeks, and increasing the dose by five grains at the end of