The American eclectic practice of medicine (Volume 2).

  • Jones, I. G. (Ichabod Gibson), 1807-1857.
Date:
1853-54
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The American eclectic practice of medicine (Volume 2). 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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    venience, and should be continued for a number of weeks or months, if necessary. Or if there are any objections to the issue, the same indication can be fulfilled, only to a less ex- tent, by the application of the irritating tar plaster to the cervical vertebrae. I have thus far confined my remarks upon the treatment of this affection to the consideration of purely local measures, regarding them as of the first importance for the suspension or removal of the exciting cause of the disease. Whatever efficiency may be anticipated or realized from these local measures, their effects must be transitory so long as the cause of the disease is allowed to remain in operation. Here, then, simultaneously with the local appliances just described, the cause should be at once attacked. If the patient is a public speaker or singer, his vocation or vocalization should at once be suspended, and his general health receive a full share of attention. If the local affection is associated with a sluggish state of the digestive organs, a coated tongue and no epigas- tric tenderness, it would be well to premise the administration of a gentle emetic. The acetous tincture of sanguinaria and lobelia, or the infusion of lobelia and boneset, as heretofore recommended, may be used for this purpose. In either case they should be administered till the desired action is pro- duced, and it may be found desirable to repeat the emetic once or twice in the course of the treatment. But whether the emetic be administered or not, when there is inactivity of the digestive organs without irritation, and torpor of the bowels, our common gin or Bone's bitters will prove a valua- ble adjuvant in giving tone to the digestive organs, regulat- ing the action of the bowels, and thereby favoring, to a very important degree, general restoration. If the liver should be slow in its secretions, a small quantity of podophyllum may be added to the bitters with a view to its cholagogue influence on that viscus; or the compound taraxacum pill may be given at the same time with the bitters, without the addition of the podophyllum. But when indigestion is the principal and efficient cause of disease of the larynx, in which case a red tongue, epigastric