To consumptives : information respecting the practice of F.H. Ramadge : containing an account of several cases in relation to this practice, in which it has been beneficial in this country, with other corroborative testimony / by J.M. Howe.

  • Howe, John Moffat, 1805-1885.
Date:
1846
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: To consumptives : information respecting the practice of F.H. Ramadge : containing an account of several cases in relation to this practice, in which it has been beneficial in this country, with other corroborative testimony / by J.M. Howe. 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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    doctor has inserted a large number of cases taken from Dr. Ramadge's work, and has also given several highly interesting cases which have been successfully treated by himself, in which inhalation was employed. Dr. Rose, of Philadelphia, has also adopted this practice, and pub- lished a work, in which he highly recommends inhalation for pulmonary diseases. Dr. Morris Mattson, of Boston, in a late work on medi- cal practice, containing more than seven hundred pages, octavo, appropriates nearly three pages to Dr. Ramadge's practice. He remarks, I have made a few experiments with Dr. R.'s tube in pulmonary consumption in my own practice, and was highly pleased with the result. I am disposed to consider it a very important instrument in the treatment of consumption. The physician who would adopt this practice should make himself familiar with Dr. Ramadge's work on con- sumption, so as to understand how and when inhalation should be employed, and when discontinued;—and so of medical treatment and diet. I am positive, from the experience I have had of the use of the tube in my own case, and in a large number of cases that have come under my observation, that the principal means upon which de- pendence is to be placed is the use of the tube. Any physician who adopts inhalation in his practice for tuber- cular consumption will be likely to be as successful as Dr. Mattson, of Boston, or Drs. Filch and Rose, of Philadelphia. I am aware of the existing opinion among physicians, that when tubercular phthisis, or pulmonary consumption, is once seated, it cannot be cured ; and as all medical means have failed hitherto, it is not to be wondered at that such an opinion should prevail. Hence, as far as my knowledge goes, physicians do not attempt or profess to cure tubercular consumption; nay, they affirm that it cannot be cured; therefore they only direct their atten- tion to the alleviating of symi)toms, and not to the disease itself. But admitting that means have hitherto failed, does it follow, that in this age of research, and improve- ment in arts and sciences generally, no improvement is to be made for the treatment of this, the most common of diseases ' If medical science has advanced in some departments, why may there not be a means for the