Rational medicine, its position and prospects : an oration delivered before the members of the Hunterian Society, on the 15th February, 1860 / by Stephen H. Ward.

  • Ward, Stephen Henry, 1819-1880.
Date:
1860
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Rational medicine, its position and prospects : an oration delivered before the members of the Hunterian Society, on the 15th February, 1860 / by Stephen H. Ward. 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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    cases of ague, either recent or chronic. Several of these cases, after they came under ray care, had purposely not been interfered with medically; but in spite of favourable hygienic conditions and removal from excit- ing cause, the paroxysms continued, until an effective dose of quinine, administered at the proper time, checked them.* Though less immediately palpable and rapid, the action of iodide of potassium in tertiary syphilis appears not less certain; nor is that of iron in anaemia, or of cod-liver oil in strumous affections. There can be no doubt, again, in the mind of any experienced practitioner, of the great temporary mechanical relief given by certain drugs in various forms of dropsy; nor of the admirable palliative action of opium and other anodynes in cases innumerable, and especially in pro- moting the euthanasia; nor, further, that there are many cases vt^hich modified hygienic arrangements will not meet, without the rational co-operation of special medicine. In giving this outline of my own experience and views, I shall not be accused, I trust, of indifference * Mr. Bradford, superintendent of th.e Royal Military College at Sandhurst, informs me, that when in charge of the European Military Hospital at Kandy, in Ceylon, in 1856, he found cases of intermittent fever get rapidly well without qumine, provided they were removed from the exciting cause, and placed under favourable hygienic conditions. He admits, however, that the drug' is an invaluable prophylactic and curative agent, when exposure to the exciting cause is inevitable. He also says,—*' In the treatment of the remittent fever of the West Indies, I abstained altogether from the use of calomel, and met certainly with not less success than my neighbours, who salivated all their cases, and, of course, cured all who did not die.