Observations on the utility and administration of purgative medicines in several diseases / by James Hamilton.

  • Hamilton, James, 1749-1835.
Date:
1829
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Observations on the utility and administration of purgative medicines in several diseases / by James Hamilton. 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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    fects of these, are given daily, or as often as the chro- nic nature of the case may make them necessary. These reports are the result of the accounts which the patients give of themselves, of the accounts which are received from the nurses, or of both together; they are dictated by the Physician to his clerk, who at the time enters them into the journal-book. All these proceedings take place in public, in the presence, and in the hearing, of a number of young Gentlemen, who attend the Hospital, many of whom are competent judges of what is going forward. Thus, the Physician must include, in his reports, all the circumstances, as they arise in particular cases; circumstances over which he has no control, and which must inevitably direct his practice. Further, the Physician of the Royal Infirmary, in consequence of his attendance every day, is enabled to follow out his practice with peculiar precision and accuracy; to do which he is also stimulated by the interest which he cannot but take in his patients, not unfrequently friendless strangers; and, by the unavoidable publici- ty of his whole procedure respecting them, which places him often in delicate and trying situations. Cases then of this description, which, in their pro- gress, cannot be perverted to particular purposes, and which cannot afterwards be altered, by any retrospec- tive emendation of the practitioner, possess an au- thenticity peculiar to themselves; and, in the esta- blishing of medical facts, may be produced as an au- thority, that cannot be controverted. Indeed, I es- teem myself fortunate in having documents of this kind to adduce, in support of a practice which may be thought to require all the confirmation which the most incontrovertible evidence can afford. These cases, inserted in the different numbers of the Appen- dix, are dated from the Royal Infirmary. Again, in further support of the exhibition of pur-