Pathological observations : and particularly on the morbid changes of the blood, and their influence on the production and course of the diseases, illustrated by select cases and dissections / by William Stoker.

  • Stoker, William.
Date:
1823
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Pathological observations : and particularly on the morbid changes of the blood, and their influence on the production and course of the diseases, illustrated by select cases and dissections / by William Stoker. 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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    « is degree, mark the extent of the evils that sprung from its abuse, and the consequent discredit into which it has latterly fallen. The new light ** (he adds) which was thrown upon the animal ** economy by this important discovery, (the circulation of the blood) served only to redou- ble the rage of systems. Nothing else was thought of but to cause the blood to circulate more freely, to destroy its viscosity, to draw off from the body that which was supposed to be corrupted, to purify it, correct it and renew it, and to preserve the blood-vessels in a re- laxed and pervious state. Hence those torrents of aqueous and diluent drinks, with which ** Bontekoe and his adherents inundated their ** patients. Hence that sanguinary fury, which ** the partisans of Botalli thought themselves ** entitled to exercise in their treatment of all sorts of diseases;—a fury which, though so often damped, in some measure, by systematic murders, has ceased only for intervals, and still ** from time to time reappears in the schools. Hence too, that wretched mania of the trans- ** fusion of blood, of which the practice almost al- ways deprived those who had the temerity to subject themselves to so dangerous an operation, of their life, or their reason.'* This extract is intended to shew how one of the most beautiful discoveries of modern medi- cine was misapplied, and that far from elucidating B 2