A text-book of pharmacology, therapeutics and materia medica / by T. Lauder Brunton ; adapted to the United States Pharmacopoeia by Francis H. Williams.

  • Brunton, T. Lauder (Thomas Lauder), 1844-1916.
Date:
1891
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A text-book of pharmacology, therapeutics and materia medica / by T. Lauder Brunton ; adapted to the United States Pharmacopoeia by Francis H. Williams. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    17/1324
    the British Homoeopathic Congress at Norwich, says, with regard'^, |< to the action of quinine in ague, that * it was this very instance of successful empirical treatment, of specific medicinal action, that led Hahnemann first to investigate the actions of drugs OH the healthy human frame, and thus to lay the foundation of the most complete and lucid system of scientific therapeutics that the world has yet seen.' But I have shown in the hody of this work (p. 52) that, although Hahnemann's observations were in all probability perfectly correct, the conclusions he drew from them were utterly erroneous. But there is another side to the question which I think it is only fair to consider also. While Hahnemann's theory was certainly bad, there can, I think, be little doubt that he, like Paracelsus and Priessnitz, has done good service to medical practice. Paracelsus gathered information from shepherds, wise women, and quacks of all sorts, and thereby obtained a know- ledge of popular remedies, not generally employed by the profes- sion, but which were nevertheless useful. Priessnitz did not invent the use of cold water as a remedy, for it was known nearly eighteen hundred years before his time. Musa saved the life of Augustus by the cold bath, but, not knowing exactly how and when to employ it, he killed the nephew of the Emperor by it, and such failures brought the treatment by water into discredit. Priessnitz revived it, and now in the use of cold sponging, wet packs, baths and douches we have a powerful means of treating fever and curing disease. Hahnemann also did good, and the system which he founded has done great service by teaching us the curative power of unaided Nature, the use of diet and regimen in treating disease, and the more than inutility, the actual hurtfulness, of powerful drugs in many instances. The physician is bound to do the very utmost he can for his patient, and his very anxiety has frequently led him to do harm. He has been afraid to leave the cure of disease to Nature, and by the administration of powerful drugs has frequently injured instead of benefited his patient. The use of infinitesimal doses which could not affect the body of the patient one way or the other, but kept the mind of both patient and physician easy, and allowed the vis medicatrix naturae free scope, has helped us to a more perfect knowledge of the natural course of disease. The use of infinitesimal doses has also led to much care being bestowed by those who use them upon diet and regimen. When a physician administered a large dose