Dosimetric medicine, or, A reform of pharmacy & therapeutics : an address to the physicians of Great Britain / by Dr. Burggraeve.

  • Burggraeve, Ad. (Adolphe), 1806-1902.
Date:
1879
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Dosimetric medicine, or, A reform of pharmacy & therapeutics : an address to the physicians of Great Britain / by Dr. Burggraeve. 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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    pressed, and the bladder, painfully distended, rose as high as the region of the navel. It was evident to the touch that the superior portion contained liquid, whilst the lower portion contained clotted blood through which the catheter could not pass, or, at least its orifice became clogged, and it brought forth no liquid. Under circumstances of so urgent a nature, my colleagues and myself in consultation were of opinion that it was necessary to have recourse to hypogastric paraccnthesis by means of the appa- ratus of Diculafoi. This operation was obliged to be renewed every day until com- plete absorption of the clot had taken place. Fearing that hematuria might return we kept the patient under the influence of hydroferrocyanate of quinine. Finally there supervened a marked vesical tenesmus, which obliged us to have recourse to cicutine and hyoscyamine. We owe it to our colleagues to remark that, although allopaths, they did not object to this dosimetric treatment. Let us note what hap- pened :—Under the influence of these two medicines the urine flowed easily, but there was incontinency. As soon as this was perceived, I remarked to my colleagues that by ceasing to give hyoscyamine, and replacing it by sulphate of strychnine, all would come right. And so, in fact, it happened. The conclusion was that we had opened the neck of the bladder too much before re- establishing the contraction of the body of this viscera, which had been enormously distended. This case, and many others of a similar nature, shows that dosimetric medicine may be used as a touchstone in diagnosis. How often it happens that a medical man remains in suspense as regards the cause of an ailment ! Thus, in the two last cases which we have cited, that of saturnine enteralgia, and that of h?ematuric incontinency, it might be enquired what caused an obstacle to the emission of fcecal matters and of urine ? Was there spasm or paralysis ? The question was solved by the hyoscyamine and the strychnine ; and, although having quite different actions, these two alkaloids each produced their proper effect. And this proves that the action of dosimetric medicaments is elective and by no means antagonistic, as certain writers of materia mcdica have pretended. It is true that these writers have never tried the medicines upon patients, and as to their experiments on animals, they have administered these so-called poisons in doses at which they really do poison. That is not therapeutics, but simply toxicology !