Ninth annual introductory address delivered before the class of the Medical Department of the University of Nashville, November 7, 1859 / by C.K. Winston.

  • Winston, C. K. (Charles K.)
Date:
1859
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Ninth annual introductory address delivered before the class of the Medical Department of the University of Nashville, November 7, 1859 / by C.K. Winston. 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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    process. Now a knowledge of these facts, verified by actual experiment, has given a wonderful impetus to such investiga- tions, and in connection with similar physiological enquiries, has given a proper direction to the use of these and kindred remedies. Their action is indisputable, and sets forth in a clear light the value of scientific researches. The empiric, it is true, might cure a case of debility with iron, but he would not com- prehend the modus operandi. He would not understand that it is only beneficial in anaemia or poverty of the blood, and that some cases of debility could not be cured with it; in other words, that it cured by supplying a wanting material. Again, according to the best light, inflammation consists in nothing but the results of a vice of nutrition, in which, amongst other things, there is a rapid increase of the fibrinous portion of the blood. And it has been as clearly proven that certain remedies have the power of lessening this fibrinous or plastic character. Who has not witnessed the most remarkable changes in the shortest time, in certain inflammatory diseases, under the judicious use of mercury and other articles of this class? In their employment there is the highest philosophy. How it is that mercury, iodine, and similar articles, counteract a morbid process going on in the blood, or neutralize a morbid principle, we may not understand; speculations upon the subject are unsatisfactory. Perhaps we may find out by continuing our researches in this most interesting branch of medical science. Some, as we have seen, are nutural to the blood, and remain in it; others are unnatural, and must be thrown off, and, if the occa- sion permitted, it would be an interesting enquiry to trace their action still further. They are called Haematics. Other medicines simply use the blood as a medium through which they may approach those portions of the system upon which they are peculiarly adapted to act. Opium, Veratria, and Strychnine display their effects upon the cerebro-spinal nerves. But we have seen that the effect of a medicine cannot be con- veyed along the nerves, and hence it is necessary that it should pass along the current of the circulation in order that it may be