Kennedy on diseases of the skin.

  • Kennedy, Donald, 1812-1889.
Date:
[1858?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Kennedy on diseases of the skin. 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.)

    18/50
    CANCER. I would not write a word on tins disease, only that the class to which it belongs would not be complete without it. As it is, I have nothing of my own knowledge to give, but will confine myself to a few extracts from authors who have written on the subject. Perhaps there is no disease which the human body is liable to that deserves more attention than cancer. The most ingenious in the physical art have employed their utmost endeavors to find out the cause, but hitherto their attempts have proved abor- tive, and I think it is now almost universally allowed to be incurable, except being ex- tirpated with the knife. [Norford. No medicine has been found yet that can be relied on in the cure of cancer. [Cel- ses. Of nearly sixty cancers which I was present at the extirpation of, only four patients, remained free of the disease for two years. [Donald Monro. Whatever is the nature of this poison that causes cancer, it is certainly a very dead- y one. [Norford A certain empiric (quack) cured every kind of cancer by sprinkling on a powder which gave no pain whatever ; he afterwards healed the part by a healing plaster. This tat died with the man. [Van Helmont. It is a truth that cannot be denied, that those diseases for which we* have no rem- edy are commonly neglected by the professors of the art. This is productive of two evils, the obscure disease remains uninvestigated, and the patient becomes a prey to mercenary empirics. When the cancerous poison has acquired the power of contami^ :miion, the disease is generally too far advanced to be subdued by the extirpation o the tumor. [Sir Everard Home. Dr. Smith, surgeon to St. Thomas's Hospital, had the curiosity to taste a drop of cancerous matter, and from that hour he was tormented with a horrid taste in his mouth, which defied all means of relief; he languished a few months, and died a mis- erable death, from the consequence of it. A child three years old had drank a little of the water in which an ulcerated cancer had been'washed ; in about a fortnight an ulcer nad seized the tongue, and side of the mouth and face, making dismal ravages. She w as with difficulty cured. Messieurs Du Fowet and Faget, in the Memoirs of the Academy of Surgeons Paris, have by several curious experiments discovered that cancerous tumors are form ed of stagnant, inspissitated, lymphatic and gelatinous juices, which by a putrid disso- lution are converted into a malignant and corrosive sanies that soon ulcerates the flesh. This was indeed a great discovery, and hopes were entertained that something could be found to scatter the tumor. M. Faget followed his discovery by years of experi- ments and thankless toil that does credit to his head and heart. At last melancholy and reluctantly he gives it up, and says little dependence need now be placed on atten- uating medicines ; we are reduced o the necessity of using emolients. In the year 1690 it was first discovered that cancers had roots. M. Deshais Gend- ron, physician to the University of Montpclier, in France, had a patient with a cancer on his forehead. He says: I began as before, with a greater portion of my corrosive, and the third day of the application, being impatient for the scab to fall off, I stirred it with my probe on the middle of the sore, when I perceived some white filaments in the ulcer that I could not account for. Then taking hold of it with my small nippers and, drawing it towards I found it gave way; I drew it along, causing the man much pain. They came all directions, from above the forehead, from around the eyes, from the nose and v When I got it out, I found it looked like the roots of onions, or leeks. In V rt a plain plaster healed the sore, which became perfectly welL In pondering over