Domestic medicine : $b or, a treatise on the prevention and cure of diseases by regimen and simple medicines. With an appendix, containing a dispensatory for the use of private practitionersBuchan, William
Science
Domestic medicine : $b or, a treatise on the prevention and cure of diseases by regimen and simple medicines. With an appendix, containing a dispensatory for the use of private practitioners
Buchan, William
Medicine, Popular -- Early works to 1800
In the mean time, we would advise him not to leave off all internal
medicines, but to take either one of the boluses of snake-root,
asafœtida, and camphire; or one of the powders of nitre, camphire, and
snake-root, twice a-day. These may be used during the whole time he is
bathing.
During the use of the mercurial ointment, the patient must keep within
doors, and take nothing cold.
A proper regimen must be observed throughout the whole course. The
patient should abstain from flesh, and all salted and high-seasoned
provisions. He must avoid strong liquors, and live mostly upon a light
and rather spare diet. His mind should be kept as easy and cheerful as
possible, and all excessive heat and violent passions avoided with the
utmost care.
I have never seen this course of medicine, with proper regimen, fail to
prevent the hydrophobia, and cannot help again observing, that the want
of success must generally be owing either to the application of improper
medicines, or not using proper ones for a sufficient length of time.
Mankind are extremely fond of every thing that promises a sudden or
miraculous cure. By trusting to these they often lose their lives, when
a regular course of medicine would have rendered them absolutely safe.
This holds remarkably in the present case. Numbers of people, for
example, believe if they or their cattle were once dipped in the sea, it
is sufficient; as if the salt-water were a charm against the effects of
the bite. This, and such like whims, have proved fatal to many.
It is a common notion, if a person be bit by a dog which is not mad,
that, if he should go mad afterwards, the person would be affected with
the disorder at the same time; but this notion is too ridiculous to
deserve a serious consideration. It is a good rule, however, to avoid
dogs as much as possible, as the disease is often upon them for some
time before its violent symptoms appear. The hydrophobia has been
occasioned by the bite of a dog which shewed no other symptoms of the
disease but listlessness and a sullen disposition.
Though we do not mean to treat fully of the cure of the hydrophobia, yet
we are far from reckoning it incurable. The notion that this disease
could not be cured, has been productive of the most horrid consequences.
It was usual either to abandon the unhappy persons, as soon as they were
seized with the disease, to their fate, to bleed them to death, or to
suffocate them between matrasses or feather-beds, &c. This conduct
certainly deserved the severest punishment! We hope, for the honour of
human nature, it will never again be heard of.
I have never had an opportunity of treating this disease, and therefore
can say nothing of it from my own experience; but the learned Dr. Tissot
says, it may be cured in the following manner:
1. The patient must be bled to a considerable quantity; and this may be
repeated twice, or thrice, or even a fourth time, if circumstances
require it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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