The remedies employed in cardiac affections and their indications / by Thomas R. Fraser.

Date:
1895
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The remedies employed in cardiac affections and their indications / by Thomas R. Fraser. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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

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    THE REMEDIES EMPLOYED IN CARDIAC AFFECTIONS AND THEIR INDICATIONS. Mr President,—When invited by you to take part in a dis- cussion on the subject of Cardiac Therapeutics, I gladly consented, for the subject is one of great importance to all practitioners of medicine, who, also, by the statement of their practical experience, cannot fail to contribute much information useful for guidance in the treatment of heart affections. Cardiac affections, further, are every day before us, and the number of cases seems to be increasing. They nearly always present themselves in circum- stances demanding grave consideration; not only because of the disorders produced by a deranged circulation, but also because of the anxiety and distress which are associated with even the less important of their forms. In the majority of instances, however, they also present them- selves as affections in which, notwithstanding associated dangers and anxieties, the physician, by the judicious selection and employment of remedies, can confer more conspicuous benefits than in the case of the greater number of other serious affections. This gratifying result is most frequently obtained by the administration of substances possessing the fundamental action of digitalis,—the remedy which for the longest period of time has been employed in the treatment of heart diseases, and which, also, has been the substance first used by pharmacologists to define a type of action obviously beneficial in the greatest number of the disorders of the heart. The definition of the action of digitalis, however, was not obtained until many years after it had become widely known as a cardiac remedy, on the recommendations contained in Dr Withering’s Account of tlic Foxglove, and some of its Medical Uses, published in 1785. It remained for pharmacological investigators—prominent among whom must be mentioned Claude Bernard—to determine the true action of digitalis; and, indeed, it is only recently that we, as B