A discourse addressed to the Kentucky State Medical Society at its annual meeting : held in Lebanon, April 18, 1859 / by Joshua B. Flint.

  • Flint, Joshua B. (Joshua Barker), 1801-1864.
Date:
1859
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A discourse addressed to the Kentucky State Medical Society at its annual meeting : held in Lebanon, April 18, 1859 / by Joshua B. Flint. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    [7] pensation, has communicated to his fellows, in the form of lecture, occasional discourse, or more explicit report, his satis- factory experience and convictions, until it can boast, already, in this country, a considerable show of literature, devoted to the commemoration of its merits, and the diffusion of its influence. The philosophic and genial poet of our profession, the inimi- table Holmes, in a recent valedictory addressed to the medical graduates of his school, in the spirit of this beneficent ameliora- tion of practice, charges them on the point we are contempla- ting, in the following epigramatic lines: With regard to the exhibition of drugs, as a part of your medical treatment, the golden rale is, be sparing. Many reme- dies you give would make a well person so ill that he would send for you, at once, if he had taken one of your doses acci- dentally. It is not quite fair to give such things to a sick man, unless it is clear that they will do more good than the very considerable harm you know they will cause. Be very gracious especially with children. To the same effect, but far more authoritative are the recent congratulations of Prof. Bennett, that the art has, of late years, been undergoing a great revolution — that whilst plrysiology and pathology have been making rapid advances, our previous impressions of the action of drugs, and of various modes of treatment have become altogether changed—vindicating the necessity of this change, moreover, by the remark, that the prevalent therapeutics are so exceptionable that many intel- lectual inquirers among us take refuge in a universal skepti- cism as to the action of drugs, leave every thing to nature, and merely adopt what in France is called an expectant treat- ment, and in Germany, the practice of Nihilism us. Nay, he adds, it has even been contended that our remedies, so far from doing good, in many instances, do positive harm, and that it is safer to trust to nature than to the physician. Such extreme re-actionary conclusions are not cited, either by Prof. Bennett or the present speaker, with approbation of them; but only as evidence of the grave abuses which must have existed to have provoked them—abuses of medication — abuses of drugs — abuses at once of professional discretion, and of popular credulity. Let it not be said, that we encour-