First principles of medicine / by Archibald Billing.

  • Billing, Archibald, 1797-1881.
Date:
1838
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: First principles of medicine / by Archibald Billing. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.

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    patient's strength to the utmost ;* and that though occasional comphcations may call for antiphlogistic treatment^ tubercular disease by itself does not. I must again caution young practitioners against shutting up phthisical patients in warm rooms. I am satisfied that the want of exercise induces a languor which makes them wear out faster than if permitted to ride or walk, according to their strength, in the open air. At every exacerbation of their complaint, phthisical patients say they have caught * Many years ago a young married lady, who had two children, came under my care with all the symptoms of confirmed consumption, cough and muco-purulent expectoration. She had occasionally spat a little blood; there were night sweats and col- liquative diarrhcea. I supported her strength with animal food, and some fermented liquor, whenever her pulse could bear it; gentle exercise in the open air, and free admission of air into her rooms. I restrained the diarrhcea by catechu, logwood, and sometimes opiates ; sometimes applied half-a-dozen leeches, and blisters, and gave digitalis for a few days when there was appearance of acute inflammation ; sometimes gave bark and soda; sometimes quinine with diluted sulphuric acid, which restrained the sweats. Beyond my hopes, she got well, and continued so for about five years, having one child more in that time. I think that during the attack she had expectorated a crop of tubercles, but I cannot be certain, as I had not then practised auscultation. However, after the five years, she had a renewal of all the symptoms; and I know that she then had cavities in the lungs, as I ascertained by ausculta- tion that there was crepitation, pectoriloquy, and cavernous respi- ration. From this she recovered again in about a year; and when she regained her strength had another child. Within two years from her second recovery she had another return of the same symptoms, and died,—the lungs, upon examination, being full of large cavities. The process of utero-gestation is said to sus- pend the progress of phthisis; but in this case the period occu- pied by one pregnancy bears a small proportion to the interval between the first and second attack (p. 266, 1. 14, p. 264, 1. 23).