A manual of the practice of medicine / by George Hilaro Barlow.

  • Barlow, George Hilaro, 1806-1866.
Date:
1856
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A manual of the practice of medicine / by George Hilaro Barlow. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.

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    not, and that although it has heen stated to be a tonic, there is little ground for supposing it to he so, beyond the simple fact of its stopping the paroxysms of ague and periodic neuralgia. Other tonics have been recommended for the cure of ague, though none can bear comparison with the above as to their power over the disease ; from the vegetable kingdom there are the willow bark and salicine ; the cusparia bark, which contains cinchonia; the acorus, or calamus aromaticus ; the gentian, &c. : and from the mineral, zinc and copper, the former of which has perhaps hardly been tried as fully as it deserves. But whatever be the remedy employed, it is to be remem- bered that the paroxyms after they have apparently ceased for a considerable time, will often return ; generall}^ upon a day on which one would have taken place had there been no interruption to their recurrence; and therefore it is necessary to continue the remedy for some days after the disease has aiDparently subsided. There is no doubt that a loaded state of the bowels, or congested condition of the liver, interferes with the beneficial eifects of quina or arsenic ; and therefore it is often expe- dient to administer a moderate mercurial purgative before commencing the remedy to be employed in the intermission, whenever there is the least suspicion upon this point. An ingenious suggestion has lately been made, that quina and arsenic act mainly as antidotes, counteracting the agency of the poison, but not removing it; and, therefore, that it would be most desirable to find some means of elimi- nating the poison from the system; for this purpose saline diuretics have been recommended, and particularly the acetate of potass. It does not appear, however, that this remedy can be relied on for preventing the paroxysm, though it did so in two of several cases thus treated at Guy's. Where, however, the order of the paroxysms had been broken by quina, it certainly seemed to promote convalescence. The treatment of complicated ague must, of course, depend mainly upon the nature of the complication. We have' already noticed the tendency to congestion in the liver and spleen, which is in some degree induced in all who continue long within the influence of the malaria, even should they not become actually the subjects of ague, but which is aggravated tenfold by the occurrence of paroxysms : there- fore the occasional use of a mercurial purgative—e. g. three 2 R