Salvarsan and other remedies in ophthalmic practice / by Freeland Fergus.

  • Fergus, A. Freeland (Andrew Freeland), 1858-1932
Date:
[between 1900 and 1909?]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Salvarsan and other remedies in ophthalmic practice / by Freeland Fergus. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    SALVARSAN AND OTHER REMEDIES IN OPHTHAL¬ MIC PRACTICE. By FREELAND FERGUS, Glasgow. pOSSIBLY in no region of medical science is it more difficult to estimate results accurately than in the very important domain of therapeutics. There are often so many factors that are quite unascertainable complicating the problem that it is difficult to estimate how far any drug is of use. Every now and again some remedy is loudly vaunted as being invaluable in certain forms of disease, but after a few vears it passes out of notice and is no longer thought suitable for the very conditions for which it was regarded as a specific on its first introduction. That there has been material progress in therapeutic work must be generally admitted, but what real and lasting progress has been made in recent years has been almost entirely on the biological side, and probably we are only at the beginning of still greater advances in the same direction. When a remedy is at one time extolled as being of very special use under certain conditions, and a few years afterwards is rarely if ever mentioned, it suggests that the original introduction of that medicine was made without a thorough and impartial test. Possibly even in some cases it is boomed by manufacturers who have a financial interest in putting it on the market. One or two examples will illustrate our meaning. Some years ago certain organic preparations of. silver were supposed to supersede everything else in the treatment of various forms of conjunctivitis. Three of the best known were protargol, argyrol, and collargol. The first was largely brought into notice by a book written by Dr. Darier of Paris and translated for the English public by Mr. Sydney Stephenson.