Old-Time Makers of Medicine: The Story of The Students And Teachers of the Sciences Related to Medicine During the Middle Ages — John Shaqi
Old-Time Makers of Medicine: The Story of The Students And Teachers of the Sciences Related to Medicine During the Middle AgesWalsh, James J. (James Joseph)
History
Old-Time Makers of Medicine: The Story of The Students And Teachers of the Sciences Related to Medicine During the Middle Ages
Walsh, James J. (James Joseph)
Medicine, Medieval; Physicians
For apoplexy and the consequent paralysis, Alexander considered
venesection the best remedy. Massage, rubbings, baths, and warm
applications are recommended for the paralytic conditions. He had
evidently had considerable experience with epilepsy. It develops either
from injuries of the head or from disturbances of the stomach, or
occasionally other parts of the body. When it occurs in nursing infants,
nourishment is the best remedy, and he gives detailed directions for the
selection of a wet nurse, and very careful directions as to her mode of
life. He emphasizes very much the necessity for careful attention to the
gastro-intestinal tract in many cases of epilepsy. Planned diet and
regular bowels are very helpful. He rejects treatment of the condition
by surgery of the head, either by trephining or by incisions, or
cauterization. Regular exercise, baths, sexual abstinence are the
foundation of any successful treatment. It is probable that we have
returned to Alexander's treatment of epilepsy much more nearly than is
generally thought. There are those who still think that remedies of
various kinds do good, but in the large epileptic colonies regular
exercise, bland diet, regulation of the bowels, and avoidance of
excesses of all kinds, with occupation of mind, constitute the mainstay
of their treatment.
Alexander has much to say with regard to phrenitis, a febrile condition
complicated by delirium, which, following Galen, he considers an
affection of the brain. It is evidently the brain fever of the
generations preceding the last, an important element of which was made
up of the infectious meningitises. Alexander suggests its treatment by
opiates after preliminary venesection, rubbings, lukewarm baths, and
stimulating drinks. Every disturbance of the patient must be avoided,
and visitors must be forbidden. The patient's room should rather be
light than dark. His teaching crops up constantly in the centuries after
his time, until the end of the nineteenth century, and while we now
understand the causes of the condition better, we can do little more for
it than he did.
Alexander divided mental diseases into two, the maniacal and
melancholic. Mania was, however, really a further development of
melancholia, and represented a high grade of insanity. Under melancholy
he groups not only what we denominate by that term, but also all
depressed conditions, and the paranoias, as also many cases of
imbecility. The cause of mental diseases was to be found in the blood.
He counselled the use of venesection, of laxatives and purgatives, of
baths and stimulant remedies. He insisted very much, however, on mental
influence in the disease, on change of place and air, visits to the
theatre, and every possible form of mental diversion, as among the best
remedial measures.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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