A lecture on some minor superiorities of the homoeopathic treatment.

  • Ludlam, R. (Reuben), 1831-1899.
Date:
1862
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A lecture on some minor superiorities of the homoeopathic treatment. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    1G whatever, or by employing only those which wc arc positive can produce none but a specific effect upon the eruption, healing it without harm to other surfaces or to the system at large. With these latter qualifications, we opine that certain local appliances may sometimes be used with advantage. 3. Of the diett tie treatment.—This is properly divided into that which concerns the mother, and that which is proper for the child. (a.) Of the mother's diet.—Without spending time upon the various speculations and theories which have been ad- vanced and supported by superior minds in the profession, your Committee would declare the conviction that the most important item in reference to this subject, and one which should constantly be born in mind, is that the diet of the patient must be as nutritious as possible. It should consist of an admixture of vegetable and animal food, taking espe- cial pains to omit neither the one nor the other variety of aliment. We have witnessed the best of results from a rich diet of beef tea, or oyster soup, with good, dry, mealy pota- . and some vegetable acid,—as afforded by baked apples, oranges or a weak lemonade. These latter we almost never deny the patient, and have invariably found them to be as really beneficial as they were grateful to her. The idea that, because she craves these acids, and would perhaps eat of tinm to excess if allowed, it is therefore best to deny their enjoyment at all, is a cruel relic of the ancient regime. The hint which Nature throws out in such a case, we may always find it safe to adopt; and we shall soon be led to remark that at least nine-tenths of the examples of nursing sore-mouth which are to be met with, like the Scorbutus, demand an extra supply of vegetable acid, in one form or another. (b.) Of the diet for the child.—It was at one time recom- mended indiscriminately, that the infant be taken from the breast immediately upon the advent of this disease. But the opinion of our best modern physicians is adverse to this pro- ceeding, where it can possibly be avoided. As a rule, it is not necessary to wean the child. We have never ordered it; and, unless the mother were weak and emaciated, with so great a lack of vitality, as at once to impair her power of re-action from the violence of the disease, and of furnishing her offspring a support at all commensurate with its necessities, we could not feel justified in making so unnatural a prescription.