A treatise on therapeutics : comprising materia medica and toxicology with especial reference to the application of the physiological action of drugs to clinical medicine / by H. C. Wood.

  • Wood, H. C., Jr. (Horatio C.), 1841-1920.
Date:
1880
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A treatise on therapeutics : comprising materia medica and toxicology with especial reference to the application of the physiological action of drugs to clinical medicine / by H. C. Wood. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    At tlie present time, when the shelves of private and public libraries are groaning beneath their ever-increasing loads, when a thousand presses in every city send forth day and night their printed messages until the earth is filled with them, it seems almost presumptuous for any one to offer new volumes to the world. Indeed, art is so long, life is so short, that eveiy student has the right to demand of an author by what authority he doeth these things, and to challenge every memoir for its raison d'Ure. This being so, it assuredly will not appear egotistical for the author to state that his voluntary task was first suggested by his own wants, and that to its perfomance he has brought the training, labor, and experience of years spent in the laboratory, the study, the class-room, and the hospital ward. There are a number of excellent treatises upon materia medica and thera- peutics ; yet in various attempts at original research, as well as in the ward and the lecture-room of the hospital, I have keenly felt the want of something more. There are many points of view from which a subject can be looked at; there are many paths by which it may be approached; and to me, other points of view, other modes of approach, have been far more enticing than those adopted in our standard treatises. The old and tried method in therapeutics is that of empiricism, or, if the term sound harsh, of clinical experience. As stated by one of its most ardent supporters, the best possible development of this plan of investigation is to be found in a close and careful analysis of cases before and after the administra- tion of a remedy, and, if the results be favorable, the continued use of the drug in similar cases. It is evident that this is not a new path, but a highway already worn with the eager but weary feet of the profession for two thousand years. That very much has been thus accomplished it were folly to deny. Leaving out of sight the growth of the last two decades, almost all of the current therapeutic knowledge has been gained in this way. Therapeutics developed in this manner cannot, however, rest upon a secui-e foundation. Wliat to-day is believed is to-morrow to be cast aside, certainly has been the law of advancement, and seemingly must continue to be so. What has clinical therapeutics established permanently and indisputably? Scarcely anything beyond the primary facts that quiuia will arrest an inter- mittent, that salts will purge, and that opium will quiet pain and lull to sleep. To establish therapeutic facts the profession clings as with the heart