Memoir of the medicinal action of arsenic : collected from the reported experience of the members of the Provincial Medical and Surgical Association, and other sources / by Thomas Hunt.

  • Hunt, Thomas, 1798-1879.
Date:
1849
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Memoir of the medicinal action of arsenic : collected from the reported experience of the members of the Provincial Medical and Surgical Association, and other sources / by Thomas Hunt. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

    9/42 (page 7)
    ON THE MEDICINAL ACTION OF ARSENIC. In endeavouring to analyse the mass of information placed in my hands by the kindness and zeal of my brethren, I find a large number of valuable facts more or less mixed up, in many instances, with opinions. Many of these opinions proceed from sources which entitle them to the highest respect of the pro- fession, as opinions, and some of them it would be unpardonable to bury in oblivion; but my first duty is to separate them entirely from the facts on which they are founded. This having been done, the facts lie before me in such a variety of forms, and supported by such different degrees of demonstration, that it has been an undertaking of no little difficulty to arrange them with rigid fidelity and care. I propose first to take the questions as they were originally printed in the Provincial Medical and Surgical Journal, and present a faithful abstract of the answers; and afterwards to arrange and digest them in such a form, as may show the practical conclusions to which they lead. Question I. In how many cases have you had an opportunity of watching the internal administration of arsenic in medicinal doses ? To this question the replies are definite from some gentlemen, and indefinite from others. The definite replies present an aggre- gate of 1,651 cases. The indefinite consist of such expressions as many, very many, a great many, a very great number, a great many for fifty years, frequently for thirty years, hundreds, &c. &c. On the lowest calculation, allowing 200 for the term hundreds, and 20 for the term many, &c, this indefinite number must be set down as considerably upwards of 1,500, which, added to 1,651, makes upwards of 3,000 cases. Perhaps they might justly be put down at 5,000. But it will be quite safe to consider that the following memoir presents the results of 3,000 cases, in which arsenic has been used medicinally, by seventy-five different practitioners in various counties in England,