A practical treatise on the medical properties of the Aix-La-Chapelle hot sulphureous waters and the mode of their employment / by L. Wetzlar.

  • Wetzlar, L. (Lazarus), 1810-1880.
Date:
1862
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A practical treatise on the medical properties of the Aix-La-Chapelle hot sulphureous waters and the mode of their employment / by L. Wetzlar. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    creased a little, a bath was taken every other day. The jaundice dis¬ appeared in the first three weeks; the digestion became good; the patient daily gained in strength and his looks improved visibly. The size of the liver and spleen gradually diminished, so that six weeks frow the begin¬ ning of the treatment, the lower edge of the liver was more than three inches distant from the navel, and the spleen exceeded the ribs by about two inches only. Though the general health had become excellent, di¬ gestion, sleep and circulation were perfectly sound, and the strength daily increased, there was, nevertheless, no further decrease of the swollen organs perceptible in the following fortnight. For this reason, the pa¬ tient wished to try, how the Vichy waters would act on the remains of the disease. At a consultation which I had about this with a countryman of his, a physician who at that time was staying here, we agreed on senjding him there. He remained four weeks at Vichy, I am not in¬ formed whether the Vichy waters have effected a further decrease of the morbid swellings, I only know by a letter which I received from his wife three months after his departure from Aix-la-Chapelle, that he had continued to be well; and I have not received any further news of him since. Professor Frericlis at Berlin ^ wo had the kindness to recommend me a patient^ similarly affected with waxy de¬ generation of the liver, describes his case in his classical work on the diseases of the liveras follows: Case 38. Mr. J., captain of the navy from P., had repeatedly taken mercury for secondary syphilitic affections; red oxide of mer¬ cury, bichloride, mercurial frictions, iodide of mercury had been irregularly used, without proper diet. The patient, when he called on me, was suffering from pseudo-rheumatic pains, the ulcers in the pharynx were healed, but an obstinate gastro-enteric catarrh existed for several weeks, and a jaundice accompanied by a painful swelling of the liver had developed itself. The liver measured in the mammar line 16, in the sternal line 10 centimetres; the spleen was considerably enlarged also. I sent the patient to Aix-la-Chapelle, where Dr. Wetzlai' removed the gastro-enteric catarrh by a chalk mixture with opium, and then first employed the baths and afterwards the internal use of the water with iodide of potassium. After a treatment of four weeks the jaundice had passed and the liver had gained its normal size, while the pseudo-rheumatic pains were almost entirely gone. *) Klinik der Leberkrankheiten etc. 2 vol. p. 185 f. case 25.