The helpfulness of physiological experiments to the general practitioner / by James Mackenzie.

  • Mackenzie, Sir James, (1853-1925)
Date:
[1910]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The helpfulness of physiological experiments to the general practitioner / by James Mackenzie. 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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    Issued by the Research Defence Society. .7 JUN 1° /X THE HELPFULNESS’ OF PHYSIOLOGICAL EX- PERIMENTS TO THE GENERAL PRACTITIONER By James Mackenzie, M.D., LL.L). In these pages I give the notes of the evidence I had intended to la)T before the Royal Commission on Vivisection, had I been called as a witness, as illus- trating the help that a general practitioner derives from Physiological experiment. Shortly after 1 entered into general practice, in 1880, I attended a woman, aged thirty-five years, suffering from valvular disease of the heart, produced in all likelihood during an attack of rheumatic fever many years before. She married and left the town, but returned to her father’s house, a year later, pregnant and in bad health. Towards the end of her pregnancy failure of the heart set in, so that she became very dropsical. When I saw her at the beginning of her labour she was greatly swollen and unable to lie down in bed on account of her bad breathing. We were unable to render her any assistance, because the slightest disturbance, as changing her position, in- creased the distress of breathing. The suffocation feeling produced by the attempt to give chloroform was so great that the patient begged to be left alone. In spite of our attempts to relieve her after thirty-six hours of great suffering her strength gave way and she died undelivered.