A treatise on nervous derangements and mental disorders : based upon Th. J. Rückert's Clinical experience in homoeopathy / by John C. Peters.

  • Peters, John C. (John Charles), 1819-1893.
Date:
1854
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A treatise on nervous derangements and mental disorders : based upon Th. J. Rückert's Clinical experience in homoeopathy / by John C. Peters. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    sanity ; the liberal use of stimulants proves eminently curative ; immediately after the action of a cathartic, sometimes previously to, or during that action, he gives his patient from four to six ounces of wine, or an equivalent portion of brandy, together with the most nourishing and easily digested food. Maniacal excite- ment commonly ceases very quickly under the above treatment. Bell's disease or typhomania is a peculiar form of mental derangement becoming quite common, particularly in large cities, and one in which the unpractised physician is almost certain to pursue a deleterious course of treatment; the patients almost invariably die after general bloodletting ; a fatal result can only be avoided by active stimulation. In 913 or perhaps 1806 cases, Dr. Kirkbride did not practise venesection for insanity in a single instance ; he may have done it for apoplexy, or congestion of the brain, but never for mania, melancholia, or any of the maladies generally in- cluded under the name of insanity. Dr. Rush is the great authority in favor of bloodletting, but in his time, in the early part of the present century, the system of treatment at the Bethlehem Hospital for the Insane, consisted of bleeding, purging and vomiting in the spring months. A cer- tain day was appointed on which the patients were bled ; another when they were purged ; another when they were vomited. They were all bled in May, and again in June, the precise time depending on the weather. This was the best treatment in Rush's time ; for the physicians of the Bethlehem Hospital, were among the most eminent in London. The physicians of probably 19/20ths of the institutions for the insane, not only in America and Great Britain, but in France, Prussia, and Austria condemn the practice of general bleeding in insanity, unless it be in rare and exceptional cases. In puerperal mania Smith says, bloodletting is preeminently contra indicated ; in this matter all authorities agree ; Church- ill, Pritcharu, Esquirol, Haslam, Gooch, and Burrows are equally opposed to it; even where local inflammation is dis- covered, other means should be used. In the treatment of acute mania with violence, raving and consequent exhaustion, Dr. Brigham employed seclusion, hot