On the use and abuse of the nasal douche, and on the alleged danger attending the introduction of fluids into the nasal passages / by James Patterson Cassells.
- Cassells, James Patterson, 1837-1884.
- Date:
- [1877]
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: On the use and abuse of the nasal douche, and on the alleged danger attending the introduction of fluids into the nasal passages / by James Patterson Cassells. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.
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![proves, even more conclusively than Roosa's evidence, that, in all the cases reported by Buck, the fluids were passed into the nasal passages in improper cases, or used improperly in cases that justi- fied their use; here again showing that the terms use and misuse have been misplaced as well as misapplied. To show that I am not speaking rashly, nor without warrant, I shall place before the reader a brief analysis of the evidence, as follows:—Ten cases of naso-pharyngeal catarrh are reported, in which it is alleged that the ear disease, from which each patient suffered, was the direct result of the nasal douche in one or other of the modifications that have, at the outset of this paper, been named. It is, however, to be noted that in all these cases no notice has been taken of the state of the ears before the nasal douche was employed; such a gap in the evidence is suggestive of many questions relative to the state of these organs prior to the use of the douche. In four cases in which the douche seemed admissible, the patient blew his nose immediately after passing the fluid through the nasal passages; one used cold water alone through the nostrils, the water being of the temperature of the croton in A]nil; one used the posterior nasal-douche in an active naso- pharyngeal catarrh, and so on; the remaining four cases are so briefly reported as not to admit of analysis. Here we have six out of ten cases in which the douche was clearly and unmistakably misused, in which bad results to the ears could have been foretold! So much then for the evidence upon which the use of the nasal douche is condemned! As the experience of each man is a fair measure of the worth of his opinion on any given point in which he has had experience, and ought to be a law unto himself, if it be not one to others as well, I shall now briefly show that I have not spoken without some little experience of the use of the nasal douche. In my out-door clinique here. I have treated, by my own hands, upwards of 2,300 cases of ear disease, in which the nasal passages Avere more or less affected with one or other of the many forms of catarrh. These all occurred in the persons of poor and mostly ill-fed, badly-clothed people of all ages. Two-thirds of that number have used the nasal douche in one or other of its forms; the syphon douche, when necessary, was always used upon the patient by myself; so with the anterior and posterior modifications of it:— the snuffing-up pi*ocess always was used by the patients for carrying out home treatment; most of the patients used the douche for several weeks each on an average, some, indeed, have used it](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21455600_0008.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
