Pulmonary consumption, bronchitis, asthma, chronic cough, and various diseases of the lungs, air-passages, throat, and larynx, successfully treated by medicated inhalations / by Alfred Beaumont Maddock ; with notes and additions by Charles Greene.

  • Maddock, Alfred Beaumont.
Date:
1855
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Pulmonary consumption, bronchitis, asthma, chronic cough, and various diseases of the lungs, air-passages, throat, and larynx, successfully treated by medicated inhalations / by Alfred Beaumont Maddock ; with notes and additions by Charles Greene. 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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    But there are frequent instances we meet with in actual life, where the duty of inquiry, if not positively, is really evaded; and it was not, perhaps, to be expected that the scepticism and preju- dice, which beset all departures from a beaten track, would leave this unopposed and disregarded. Let not, however, the preconceived idea, that inhalation accom- plishes little or no good, prevent an impartial and sufficiently extensive trial of its merits as a curative agent. The responsible duties which medical men owe to mankind and to themselves, equally demand that this plan of treatment should be duly inves- tigated ; for, not gifted with infallibility, in what way, except by diligent inquiry and research, can the practitioner obtain any assurance that he is not disseminating and perpetuating erroneous opinions of its value ? Some medical men, it is true, have given their attention to the subject, and have reported unfavourably of inhalation; but we have generally discovered that the cases in which it had been adopted were of such a character, that the disease had already caused very extensive disorganisation of the lungs, or, that the remedies had not been administered in the proper quantities, and with sufficient caution and perseverance. It may, however, be observed, that the instances, in which these trials have been made, are few and far between; indeed, it may be asserted, although all the members of the profession approve of the principles on which the system of inhalation is founded, that scarcely one prac- titioner in five hundred has employed it as a remedial agent; and this strange apathy has been exhibited, it must be remembered, in the treatment of those diseases declared as incurable under the old routine of practice. Facts do not justify us in asserting that inhalation will prove invariably and universally successful, any more than such a desi- rable termination could be expected in all other complaints, in which the treatment is more generally understood; but the result of our practice has clearly shown us, that pulmonary consumption and other diseases of the chest are not incurable, as they have been