The anti-zymotic or anti-fermentive treatment of Asiatic cholera / by J. Scoffern.

  • Scoffern, J. (John), 1814-1882.
Date:
1866
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The anti-zymotic or anti-fermentive treatment of Asiatic cholera / by J. Scoffern. 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.

    9/18 (page 9)
    A Notwithstanding all the admonitions long conveyed, the British public are not alive to the importance of attacking the first symptoms of diarrhoea. Far too commonly, these symptoms are either passed unregarded, or they are treated in a way repugnant to pathological indications. It is only by regarding diarrhoea in choleraic times as an integral stage of actual cholera, that the physician will have full scope afforded for the exercise of his art. On the necessity of attending to the symptoms of diarrhoea, all who have given heed to this matter are agreed; it remains to determine on the variety of treatment. Four general systems had found favour in the early stages of cholera, not to state the one that it is an object of this notice to set forth. They may be individualized as the repressive, the eliminative, the acid, and the antacid. The object of the first is to check, through the administra- tion of opiates, aromatics, and astringents, the fiow of gastric secretion. The eliminative is based on the assumption that peccant matter should be evolved through the administration of purgatives. The acid treatment consists in the administration of sulphuric acid; the pathological theory of which is not well known. By the antacid system it is sought to neutralise • free acids through the administration of chalk or alkaline carbonates. Respecting these, I would remark that according to French experience, the eliminative system has been successful in the least degree. In point of fact the French physicians warmest in advocacy of this system once, have come to testify against it. The treatment which the writer has seen cause to regard with most confidence, he calls the “ anti-zymotic ” or “ anti- fermentiv^.” It consists in the administration of small doses