The principles of the chrono-thermal system of medicine : with the fallacies of the faculty, in a series of lectures / by Samuel Dickson ; containing also an introduction and notes by William Turner.

  • Dickson, Samuel, 1802-1869.
Date:
1848
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The principles of the chrono-thermal system of medicine : with the fallacies of the faculty, in a series of lectures / by Samuel Dickson ; containing also an introduction and notes by William Turner. 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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    a vigorous antiphlogistic discipline, had the other attacked in a similar man- ner with great pain, redness, and throbbing. I found him leaning his head over a chair back, his face indicative of intense agony. For ten nights, he assured me he had been unable to tolerate any other position, and it was only towards morning, when overcome by suffering, that he could, at last, obtain anything like repose. The pain came on at bed-time, in an aggravated de- gree, and remitted principally in the afternoon. Three grains of opium, which I directed him to take half-an-hour before the recurrence of the expected paroxysm, procured him a whole night of profound sleep, and his eye, in the morning, to his astonishment, was free from pain, and only slightly vascular. He had been repeatedly bled, leeched, purged, and blistered, without even temporary benefit—indeed, the gentleman who attended him, in the first place, plumed himself upon the activity of his treatment. But how, you may ask me, can Pleurisy and Pneumonia be cured with- out blood-letting ? What are pleurisy and pneumonia ? Any rapid tendency to change in the substances of the lungs, from the real pain and presumed increase of temperature at the same time developed, is termed Pneumonia— vulgo inflammation of the lungs. A similar tendency to change in the sub- stance of the membrane (pleura) which covers the outer surface of the lungs, or of that portion of it which is continued over the inner surface of the chest, is called Pleurisy. Now, authors have thought it a fine thing to be able to tell pleurisy from pneumonia, but the thing is impossible ; and what is more, if it were possible, so far as the treatment is concerned, it would not be worth the time you should spend in doing it. Such distinctions only lead to inter- minable disputes, without, in the least, tending to improve in practice. This much, however, I do know; both diseases are developments of intermittent fever, and both may often co-exist at one and the same time. And in the Medical Gazette there is an excellent case of the kind, which, as it in a great measure illustrates the chrono-thermal doctrine and treatment in both, J shall give to you in the words of its narrator :— The patient's symptoms were difficult respiration, dry cough and stringy expectoration, pulse full. The disease commenced with an intense Jit of shivering, followed by heat and a severe cough. Every day at noon there was an exacerbation of all the symp- toms, commencing with very great shivering, cough, and intolerable pain in the chest, a fit of suffocation, and finally a perspiration ; at the end of an hour the paroxysm terminated. Ammoniacal mixture was first given, then two grains of quinine every two hours. The very next day the fit was scarcely perceptible ; the day after, there was no fit at all. An observation worthy of remark is, that the symptoms of pleuro-pneumonia—which continued throughout in a very slight degree, it is true, in the intervals of the par- oxysms—disappeared completely, and in a very short time, by the effect of the sulphate of quinine. Who are the persons most subject to inflammatory disease of the chest ? Medical theorists answer, strong healthy labourers, and people much ex- posed to the air. How these gentlemen deceive themselves! If I know anything at all upon any subject, I know that the fact in this case is just the reverse. The subjects of chest-disease in my experience have been almost all persons of a delicate habit, many of them confined to badly-ventilated rooms, and the greater number broken down by starvation, blood-letting, or previous disease. Some of you may have heard of M. Louis, of Paris, a physician who for many years has made chest-disease his study. Speaking of his consumptive patients, who became the subjects of inflammatory disease, he has this observation :— As we have already remarked, in speaking of Pneumonia, the invasion of Pleurisy coincides in a large proportion of our patients with the period of extreme weakness and emaciation.—Dr. Cowan's translation of Louis. Now, what is the usual treatment of pleurisy and pneumonia 1 Does it not almost entirely consist in blood-letting, starving, and purging, with blisters