The Presidents of the Royal Medical and Chirurgical Society from 1805 to 1905 / by Norman Moore, M.D., fellow of the Royal College of Physicians.

  • Moore, Norman, 1847-1922.
Date:
1905
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Licence: In copyright

Credit: The Presidents of the Royal Medical and Chirurgical Society from 1805 to 1905 / by Norman Moore, M.D., fellow of the Royal College of Physicians. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

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    tions as to the effects of varying conditions of pressure on the cerebral circulation. In his portrait by Knight, which hangs in the great hall of St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, a prepared brain is placed at his side in allusion to this work. He married a daughter of John Abernethy, our ninth president, and his daughter married Mr. Alfred Willett, our forty-ninth president. Burrows was president of the Royal College of Physicians from 1871 to 1875. He died at his house> 18 Cavendish Square, on December 12, 1887. The last paragraph of his chief work is of historical interest as illus- trating the difference of practice between 1846 and 1905 :— “ In all cases of pericarditis, excepting in patients affected with tubercular disease of the lungs, or in the very anaemic and cachectic, I employ mercurial preparations as freely as in acute inflammations of other parts. An in- genious writer has affirmed that the employment of this mineral in the treatment of rheumatic affections of the heart is based upon a false analogy between these specific and idiopathic inflammations of similar parts. I must confess, that, to my comprehension, the analogies between rheumatic and other inflammations of the pericardium or ■endocardium are sufficiently close to justify the employ- ment of so powerful a combination as calomel combined with opium, to reduce the inflammatory actions. My ex- perience fully confirms the propriety of employing this combination. I believe my method of prescribing these drugs does not differ from that in common use among physicians of the present day. I administer a few large doses of calomel, varying from five to ten grains, combined with a grain of opium, and then continue half the dose of the same combination at moderate intervals, until the urgent symptoms abate, or the mouth becomes distinctly affected by the mercury. I sometimes, although rarely,