Free phosphorus in medicine : with special reference to its use in neuralgia : a contribution to materia medica and therapeutics / by J. Ashburton Thompson.

  • Thompson, John Ashburton, 1848-1915.
Date:
1874
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Free phosphorus in medicine : with special reference to its use in neuralgia : a contribution to materia medica and therapeutics / by J. Ashburton Thompson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.

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    practical administration of the drug. He may further be permitted to observe that he is not aware of any method of treatment at all calculated to obviate the results of phos- phorus poisoning except it be the process of transfusion. This, theoretically, seems to be the proper remedy; but, practically, the operation would most likely require to be carried to the extent of replacing a larger proportion of the patient's blood by substitution than would, with the present appliances, be either safe or practicable. Perhaps that school, which in ascertaining the specific—that is, the anti- dotal—action of drugs, can discover fourteen hundred and forty different symptoms to arise from, the administration of belladonna, may be able to offer some simple drug strictly antidotal to phosphorus. The re-administration of the drug on the fifty-first day, was directed with regard to the altered condition of every tissue; and specially of the nerve tissue, as shown by the symptoms detailed, which are referrable both to mind and body. It was deemed that no better course could be pursued than to supply that essential of nerve matter, which experience in cases'of brain softening has shown may be supplied to it through the stomach. The recurrence of every symptom of poisoning, after the ingestion of eight thirtieths of a grain of phosphorus during four days, is not more remarkable than the striking and sudden im- provement which manifested itself as soon as these had been allowed to pass off, and was maintained under the daily use of two fiftieths. After perfect recovery had taken place, the manner in which the patient tolerated, and benefited by, full doses of zinc phosphide (as well as the manner in which she