A letter to the president and fellows of the Royal College of Physicians, in relation to the evidence, cited in their late report, on the treatment of epidemic cholera / by Joseph Ayre.

  • Ayre, Joseph, 1781-1860.
Date:
1854
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A letter to the president and fellows of the Royal College of Physicians, in relation to the evidence, cited in their late report, on the treatment of epidemic cholera / by Joseph Ayre. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    as I shall hereafter have to refer to it; but I would wish to invite attention to the particularity of detail observed in his account, as contrasted with that on which I have just animadverted, and to point out the important fact, that not only no limit need be placed on the quantity below what is required to subdue the collapse, but that patients under apparently the same condition in respect to the disease require a very dif¬ ferent amount of calomel in the gross to subdue it, extending, as in the cases quoted from Mr. Taylor, to the enormous amount of 900 and 1160 grains of calomel; and from which we have to learn that a per¬ severance in its use in each case is necessary until the collapse is removed, and that from the neglect of this rule so many have experienced a failure in the limited and partial use they have made of it. It is affirmed by your committee that calomel is wholly inert in this disease, and to support this opinion an appeal is made to the large amount which can be taken in it; but such a notion can only he entertained by those whose knowledge of the disease has been acquired in the closet, or who have had but little experience in the treatment of it, and who therefore have not had the opportunity of watching the gradual progressing of a patient towards recovery, whilst under its steady use, and his backward change on its temporary suspension, and his onward progress and final attainment of recovery upon the treatment being resumed. All who have made trial of this treatment, and have steadily pursued it, will, I believe, vouch for the truth of these remarks.