On the use of the alcoholic stimulants in fever: a paper read before the Glasgow Southern Medical Society, on the 19th Aug. 1847 / [John Leech].

  • Leech, John, -1870.
Date:
1848
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the use of the alcoholic stimulants in fever: a paper read before the Glasgow Southern Medical Society, on the 19th Aug. 1847 / [John Leech]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    THE USES OF ALCOHOLIC STIMULANTS IN FEVER. “ GIVE STRONG DRINK UNTO HIM THAT IS READY TO PERISH.” According to the arrangement proposed in a Paper introductory to a Series on the Medical Uses of Alcohol, which was read by the Essayist at a meeting of the Glasgow Southern Medical Society, held on the 23d day of July, 1846, it will possibly be in the recol¬ lection of such of the members now assembled as did me the honour to be present on the occasion, that I intimated my intention, under the approval of this learned Society (by whose instructions I at first undertook the rather onerous task of attempting to discuss this important and extensive subject), to adopt as the plan of my arrange¬ ment, the classification of disease by Dr. Cullen, for reasons I then distinctly specified, commencing with the 5th genus of the first order of the class Pyrexice, viz., Febres; and to night I intend to take up the Medical Uses of Alcohol in connection with continued Fever—a question undoubtedly of vital importance at the present hour. Little, certainly, did I anticipate when I read the former paper, that, in the brief period of a single year, such dreadful havoc should have been made in the population of this empire, more particularly in Scotland, and yet more extensively in the Sister Isle, by the prevalence of fever to a numerical amount unprece¬ dented in the remembrance of the oldest member of the pro¬ fession. This circumstance, taken in connection with the scarcity that existed of the common necessaries of life, owing to the total failure of the potato crop of last season—a main dependance of the toiling population in Scotland, and the all-in-all in Ireland— as well as a general deficiency in all sorts of agricultural produce, with a murrain amongst cattle; gaunt famine, and her accompanying demon fell disease, has committed greater havoc amidst the dwell¬ ings of suffering humanity, than did ever the most sanguinary conflict carried into the very bosom of our loved fatherland. The state of abject misery, the utter wretchedness into which tens of thousands of our teeming population have been thrown in conse¬ quence, is beyond the power of description; and a remedy to meet the urgency of the increasing cries for help seems to have baffled