Notes of clinical lectures on medical cases / by Joseph Bell.

  • Bell, Joseph, 1837-1911.
Date:
[1854?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Notes of clinical lectures on medical cases / by Joseph Bell. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    under a mild attack of cholera; and another, who had long been in a very infirm state of health, recovered to a certain extent from cholera, but never got over its effects. In two, at least, of the cases of dysentery, that affection had clearly preceded the attack of cholera, and the same remark applies to the case of renal dis¬ ease, the patient for some time having been affected with general anasarca. The apoplectic seizure seemed to have been induced by the violent vomiting • and the patient who died of delirium tre¬ mens had been drinking to excess previous to the attack of cholera, which had yielded to treatment before the affection to which his death is attributable suddenly supervened. In bringing this report to a close, I venture to express a con¬ viction that the facts and results I have stated afford reasonable and very considerable grounds for encouragement and thankful¬ ness ; and that, in particular, they sufficiently refute the statement so frequently repeated, that the medical profession has made no practical progress towards an improved method of treatment in cholera, since it first presented itself as a new and appalling visitant in this country. Unquestionably we have still much to learn, both as to its pathology and its treatment; but I think these facts and results warrant me in saying, that the patient and observant physician, who permits himself neither to be hurried away by fanciful theories,, nor to be betrayed into reck¬ less experimenting on his patients, will find, that when he is brought face to face with this formidable antagonist, the resources of medicine are by no means so impotent, and himself by no means so helpless, as is often supposed. Where and when a distinct stage of choleraic diarrhoea exists, he will find that he has to deal with a most manageable affection, which, in the immense majority of cases, can only be hurried forward to a dangerous issue by his own neglect, or the carelessness and indifference of his patient; and even when he has to encounter fully-developed cholera, if collapse has not occurred, he will find that, by following the treatment, the principles of which I have endeavoured to sketch, the results will be more favourable than in many a disease which is not generally reckoned an opprobrium to his art. VII. Notes of Clinical Lectures on Medical Cases. By Joseph Bell, M.D., Physician to the Glasgow Boyal Infirmary. Gentlemen,—I beg to direct attention to the case of cyanosis connected with dilatation of right ventricle, chronic bronchitis, and emphysema. J. C.j aged 23, admitted January SQtJi.—He stated that he had been troubled during the last four or five years with cough and expectoration. These symptoms have become much aggravated