Before we concede to the morbid anatomist, that an ulcerated or diseased
lung is necessarily incurable, we demand, by what direct method can that
assertion be proved, that tubercles, once existing in the lungs, cannot
possibly be absorbed during life, and the healthy texture again restored?
This point cannot be incontrovertibly demonstrated: who then can limit
the powers of the living texture in self-restoration? The conclusion,
that ulceration of the lungs is incapable of restoration, is founded only
upon indirect induction, and amounts, in fact, to nothing but conjecture.
There is but one way of disproving the inference that Pulmonary
Consumption is incurable, and that is by an appeal to facts. If it can
be established that in cases, where, from the attendant symptoms the same
reasons have existed for inferring disorders of the lungs to exist, as in
the case of those who die; yet that these invalids have, under a
judicious mode of treatment, gradually lost these serious symptoms, and
have at length recovered—an argument is made out, not only in favour of
the possibility of cure in this disease, but positively that it is
curable in most of its stages, by adopting those remedies which assist
nature in throwing off the diseased matter, healing the injured surface
by the application of balsamics and restoratives, possessing the power of
new creating, in the lieu of diseased surface, living and healthy
structure—so long, we again repeat, as a solitary case of cure has been
effected (and there are many) under the most unpromising circumstances,
philosophy and humanity alike oppose the practice of abandoning to its
fate any case in which there is at least a hope of cure.
Those who allege that Pulmonary Consumption is incurable, from the
results obtained by inspections after dissolution, can substantiate no
claim to depreciate the efficacy of remedial agents, until they supply us
with unequivocal symptoms, whereby we may determine between cases which
are and which are not curable. It is mere trifling to assert that all
medical means in the cure of the diseased were unavailing, and that the
disorder was incurable. This is sufficiently apparent to need that
information. But, what we require is, a certain criterion during the
life of the patient, to form our judgment between the curable cases, and
those which are pronounced incurable; which we must possess before we can
admit the necessity of despair in a solitary case. No morbid anatomist
has hitherto supplied us with that indispensable information: and the
most we can extort from them on the subject is, that in the event of the
death of the subject who exhibited certain symptoms of consumption, the
disease was necessarily incurable: and the cause assigned is—ulceration
in the lungs! But, in the case of recovery of a patient who has
experienced similar symptoms, we are informed that there could have been
no affection of the vital organs: but, no proof is offered by way of
demonstration.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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