Occasional lectures on the practice of medicine : addressed chiefly to the students of St. Mary's Medical School; : to which are appended the Harveian Lectures on the Rheumatism of Childhood; / revised and corrected up to date by W.B. Cheadle.

  • Cheadle, Walter B. (Walter Butler), 1835-1910.
Date:
1900
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Occasional lectures on the practice of medicine : addressed chiefly to the students of St. Mary's Medical School; : to which are appended the Harveian Lectures on the Rheumatism of Childhood; / revised and corrected up to date by W.B. Cheadle. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by UCL Library Services. The original may be consulted at UCL (University College London)

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    take usually made, is in resorting to them too early— from the very outset—or too late, when the heart has hopelessly broken down. They should be held in hand until the heart shows some slight indication of requiring aid of the kind, evidenced by commencing blueness, or the least flagging, or loss of tone in the pulse—not stimulating the heart unnecessarily, but giving it help on the first sign of its being required. These two drugs, strychnia and digitalis, are both most effective when administered by hypodermic injection. They act more quickly and more power- fully than when given by the mouth. This method is, however, only necessary in extreme or urgent cases, and in emergency. The use of strychnia in this way— first advocated by the present Dr. Habershon, I think— is now an established practice. I have, however, never seen digitalis so administered, except at my instance ; yet a hypodermic injection of three to five drops of tincture of digitalis is as safe, and often more potent tha.n strychnia in reinvigorating a faihng heart, and in urgent cases may be given in this way. I remember well the first case in which I used ib, that of a lady dying of puerperal fever; she was seem- ingly moribund, absolutely pulseless, cold. A hypo- dermic injection of twenty minims brought back the pulse to full beat, for a time ; the patient recovered as one from the dead, and lived twenty-four hours longer. Gentlemen, I have by no means exhausted this most attractive subject of tonic treatment, which seems to lead on indefinitely; but time fails, and I cannot venture to pursue it further.