Experiences of a civilian in Eastern military hospitals : with observations on the English, French and other medical departments and the organization of military medical schools and hospitals / by Peter Pincoffs.

  • Pincoffs, Peter, 1816-1872.
Date:
1857
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Experiences of a civilian in Eastern military hospitals : with observations on the English, French and other medical departments and the organization of military medical schools and hospitals / by Peter Pincoffs. 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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    have the imcloubted authority of excellent medical and other observers, that during the winter of 1854—1855 the same state prevailed in the Barrack-Hospital at Scutari, and that much harm was done by ^he in- discriminate use of stimulants. During the whole of the following summer, traces of that scorbutic diathe- sis were still perceptible in some patients arriving from the Crimea, as manifested by the general ha- bitus , the state of the gums, patches and slight ulcers (ecthyma) and chronic diarrhoea; all these patients did not bear stimulants well *. * It may be necessary to explain with reference to the above classification, that the cases recorded under the head of Scurvy afford but a very slight indication of the sufferings of the troops from that disease, as they include those only in which it showed itself in the form of scorbutic sores and eruptions. Nearly all the Medical officers stated that the greater proportion of the diseases of the bowels Avere com- plicated with scurvy, and the results of post-mortem exami- nation fully confirmed that opinion. The cases recorded as frost-bite, too, were those only in which that happened to be the prominent or sole affection; numbers admitted for fevers and diseases of the bowels had also to be treated for frost- bites, though to prevent the complexity which must neces- sarily have arisen from entering the same men tAvice in the Returns, the graver disease only has been noticed. It should also be kept in view that the deaths which took place at Scutari were not always from the same disr ease as originally came under treatment in the Crimea. Many Avho were sent away from the army suffering only un- der frost-bite or scurvy, recovered from these, in a great measure at Scutari, but died subsequently from fever con- tracted there; while, in other cases, men who had been sent