Practical therapeutics : considered chiefly with reference to articles of the materia medica / by Edward John Waring.

  • Waring, Edward John, 1819-1891.
Date:
1871
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Credit: Practical therapeutics : considered chiefly with reference to articles of the materia medica / by Edward John Waring. 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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    Y, from moral causes, as fright, &c.; and 8, from the presence of intestinal worms. The enumeration of these various origins of a single disease shows the folly of relying on any single remedy as a means of cure. No article of the materia medicathat we are acquainted with at present could possibly fulfil all the indications here presented. The salts of iron have been found useful in those forms of epilepsy connected with anaemia; but what possible benefit can we expect from them when the disease has its origin in organic lesion of the nervous centres ; and what but mischief when it proceeds from a plethoric condition of the brain, or of the system ? The practice of treating a disease according to its name, without mi- nutely examining into each particular case, and adapting the appropriate remedies to the several indications which present themselves, cannot be too strongly reprobated. One instance may be quoted, by way of ex- ample ; namely, electricity in paralysis. As a general rule, we may say that electricity is a remedy for paralysis ; but is it consequently applicable to every form and variety of that disease ? Far from it. Its use is limited to those cases in which a muscle, or a set of muscles, is affected, or in which there exists a torpid or benumbed condition of the nerves them- selves ; and it is further limited to these states when they are of a purely chronic character. If it be applied under other circumstances, when organic changes have taken place in the nervous centres, or whilst inflam- mation exists, or when sanguineous effusion within the cerebral or spinal meninges is present, we may do actual and permanent mischief. I am more particular in insisting on the paramount importance of this subject, as, in the body of this work, it will be seen that many remedies are recom- mended, on the authority of practitioners of high standing, which, if applied indiscriminately, without considering their applicability to the particular case under treatment, may prove, if not perfectly inert, per- haps injurious. In prescribing medicines for the removal of disease, it should ever be borne in mind that nature tends, in the majority of cases, to repair inju- ries inflicted upon the body, and to remove morbid or deranged conditions of the system. This instinctive healing power—the Vis Medicatrix Nat- urae—is undoubtedly capable, when aided by a judicious system of hy- giene, of effecting the cure of disease, particularly when it is of a mild character, without the assistance of any medicine whatever. When, con- sequently, a disease presents itself for treatment, in which hygienic means alone offer a fair prospect of success, they should always be employed in preference to medicines, it being the duty of the physician to restore health by the most simple means in his power. The credit which is really due to this natural healing tendency is too often ascribed to some drug which the patient may happen to be taking at the period of improvement or recovery ; and thus many medicinal sub- stances become endowed with reputed powers, which they really do not possess. It does not necessarily follow, because a patient recovers under a certain remedy, that recovery is due to that agent. In illustration of the fallacy of any such deductions, I may mention a case which occurred