The treatment of cancerous diseases by caustics : a critical enquiry into the modern therapeutics of cancer : being 'the address in surgery' delivered at Birmingham on the occasion of the 24th annual meeting of the Provincial Medical and Surgical Association / by Langston Parker.

  • Parker, Langston, 1805?-1871.
Date:
1856
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The treatment of cancerous diseases by caustics : a critical enquiry into the modern therapeutics of cancer : being 'the address in surgery' delivered at Birmingham on the occasion of the 24th annual meeting of the Provincial Medical and Surgical Association / by Langston Parker. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    includes the forms of remedy proper to be used, and to what cases particular forms of remedy are or are not suited. Now and then an isolated case of the appa- rently successful employment of the chloride of zinc, or the potassa cum calce, is to be found in the pages of a medical periodical; but I believe I am correct in saying, that nothing definite on this point exists in English medical literature. Even on the Continent, although there are many set treatises on the use of several caustics, an impartial history of the effects of these several remedies has yet to be composed. The chief caustics which have been used in the treatment of cancer are arsenical pastes, chloride of zinc pastes, the concentrated mineral acids, the nitric and the sulphuric, the potassa cum calce in a solid form, known as the caustic Filhos (a very valu- able remedy), and the chloride of bromine, used either alone or in combination with the chlorides of zinc, antimony, or gold. There are many other pre- parations which T could allude to, for I have paid considerable attention to the subject, but our time will not permit it. Again, I think all that can be done by caustics may be accomplished by one or more of the preparations I have already mentioned. French literature is rather rich, although ours is so defective on the subject of the use of caustics in the treatment of cancer. Canquoin’s treatise on the chloride of zinc ap- peared in 1838; one on the solidified nitric acid, by