A series of cases of acute dysentery / by W. Lindesay Richardson, M.D.

  • Richardson, Walter Lindesay.
Date:
[1864]
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A series of cases of acute dysentery / by W. Lindesay Richardson, M.D. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    ^Series of Cases of Acute Dysentery. By W, LiNDESAY Richardson, M.D., L R C.S.E., one of the Honorary Physicians to the Ballarat District Hospital. rirUed from the Australian Mediial Journal October, 1864. lowever excellent European ideas may be, and however fashionable lay be to give new doctors credit for most knowledge, it must admitted that the diseases peculiar to Australia, are not to be ■ned anywhere else. The profession is aw^e that there are mtial points of difference in disease prodbccd by climatic in- ■nce; and to the mastery of these differences there is no royal d, no sure path but experience. Familiarity with disease leads the shortest method of restoring health, that consummation so 'outly wished by the sick, and that sure foundation of success the practitioner. But in the history of medicine, there ever has been an antagonism I ;ween theory and practice, between empiricism and rationalism ; I formularies and traditionary creeds of the action of remedies ve been debated, and doubted, and dissent exists in medicine as in eology. Hence we see almost as a rule, that as experience matures igment, dependence on medication is diminished, and is transferred other means of assisting nature, such as repose, the removal of . exciting causes, regimen, fresh air, support, (kc. I am so pleased ith an article, in a late number of the Quarterly Joui-nal of •ience, that I cannot better support my own views than by a lotation. A striving after simplicity is the order of the day, the ifficiency of the natural process of recovery, when aided by a few )propriate remedies, is more widely recognized, (fee. in a paper which appeared last year in this journal, I expressed lyself that the great fact to be observed in the treatment of Acute 'ysentery is, that the tendency of this disease is to recovery. hat this is not the only acute disease of which this can be said, all •ue observers know; and this truth has been stated by various ritcrs. It has been seized upon moreover by the disciples of