On the position and prospects of therapeutics : a lecture introductory to a course on materia medica and dietetics / by T. Grainger Stewart.

Date:
1862
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the position and prospects of therapeutics : a lecture introductory to a course on materia medica and dietetics / by T. Grainger Stewart. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    tration of internal remedies, or by both, he strives to re-establish the arrested perspiratory function, and thereby to relieve the congested kidneys ; or he may aim at this latter result by more direct external means ; or he may seek to establish a freer flow of the renal secretion. He may take up other indications of nature, and seek to remove the injurious substances which are accumulating in the system, by stimulating to an unusual activity other excretory organs. And when once the physician has succeeded in establishing an increased activity of any of these functions nature avails herself of the outlet. Here we see a pure and undeniable instance of the aid which art can some- times give to nature. Again, to take a simpler instance, we find a patient suffering from the presence of irritating matters in the primse vise; nature is seeking to get rid of them, but her power can accomplish it but slowly; art steps in and accomplishes the task by the simplest means, and the patient is well. Or, on the other hand, the primae viae are in a state of chronic irritation, and are causing much discomfort to the patient; we admi- nister a few doses of a sedative and astringent medi- cine, and the patient is relieved.