On a successful method of treating acute rheumatism by large and frequent doses of bicarbonate and potash / by Alfred Baring Garrod.

  • Garrod, Alfred Baring, 1819-1907.
Date:
1855
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On a successful method of treating acute rheumatism by large and frequent doses of bicarbonate and potash / by Alfred Baring Garrod. 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.

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    to keep tlie treatment simple, as will be seeu by the table, in order that the real influence of the drug employed might be accurately determined. My plan has been as follows: To administer the bicarbonate of potash, in two scruple doses, dissolved in an ounce and half of water, every two hours, night and day, until the joint affection has ceased for three or four days ; in one or two eases, a drachm has been given every hour; in two or three others, half-drachm doses, and occasionally three hours' intervals have elapsed. Local depletion by leeching over the cardiac region has been employed when any endo- or peri-carditis has been present, and sometimes a very small depletion from the arm, rather for the purpose of obtaining blood for examination that for any therapeutic effects anticipated from it. There is considerable difficulty in fixing exactly the date at which this disease may be said to have disappeared; and doubtless, in the cases tabulated by many observers, ces- sation from pain has been taken as the indication. But a state of system may exist after the joints are free from active pain, and even without the presence of any cardiac affection, which requires but the smallest exciting cause to bring back the articular or heart affection in all its pristine intensity; and patients in such a state, although fr'ce from pain at the time, cannot with any justice be considered rid of the disease. In my own cases, I have looked upon the following condition of the patient as indicating real fi^eedom. A.bsence of pain and any acute tenderness of the joints. Freedom from any active cardiac affection. Absence of marked thirst, with returning appetite; and lastly. No unusual rapidity or hardness of pulse. The details of the following cases have been taken fi'om my hospital case-books; and I may state that until mtliin the last month, I was quite ignorant of the numerical re- sults which they would show, although fully aware that the plan had been very successful. My great object having been to obtain accurate results, every care was taken to