“I have had a great many patients suffering under Chronic diseases
from climate, exposure, and want of care, &c., patients from India,
Ceylon, and the Antipodes, with long continued diarrhœa, dysentery,
and intractable fever of an intermittent character. From the
success of this simple treatment in those cases, I have not ceased
to regret that I did not go to Scutari on my own account without
permit or introduction. I might have introduced the practice
gradually, being sure that it only required a trial to have been
adopted by the medical staff with great satisfaction.”
We join Dr. Wilson heartily in this regret, as it would have led to the
introduction of this remedy if proved efficient, and silenced its
advocates if it proved a failure. Nowhere could the two systems have
been more severely and satisfactorily tested, and we should all have
benefited by the result; the relative merits of the two systems would
have been decided, and the public no longer left to hang in doubt
between them.
The sitz bath and foot bath come next in point of importance. The
former acts with marked effect in cases of congestion of the liver and
other internal organs; by abstracting heat from the surface of the body
submitted to its influence, it causes a transference of fluids from the
centre to the exterior, and the congested organs are relieved from
their excess of blood by its being thus determined to the surface; this
effect, at first temporary, becomes permanent when the use of the bath
has been persevered in for some time. Let us now compare the effects of
this bath, in the cases of congestion of the liver, with the treatment
usually pursued by the orthodox physicians. Their remedies consist in
dosing with Calomel, or Taraxacum, or in the application of leeches to
the affected region. The two former stimulate the action of the liver,
in spite of the congested blood which oppresses it, but they do not
attempt to deal with the causes of this congestion, the result of which
is that the liver being weakened by its unnatural exertions consequent
on the unnatural stimulants which have been administered to it,
sinks—after the effect of the unnatural stimulus has worn away—into a
more enfeebled and exhausted state, and the original cause of the
congestion remaining unremoved, matters become worse than at first. In
the case of leeching, the topical bleeding relieves the affection for a
time, but this is a remedy which cannot be REPEATED in consequence of
the weakness which it engenders, and when the bleeding is given up, how
do matters stand? The disease remains in statu quo; not so, however,
the constitution, for this has been weakened by the bleeding, and
nature being consequently less able to cure herself, chronic disease of
the liver results. On the other hand, the hydropathic treatment
necessary to determine the blood from the congested organ to the
surface, and so remove the disease, can be repeated as often as
desirable, with constantly increasing effect, until permanent relief is
afforded by a perseverance in the treatment, and the patient improves
in general health, pari passu, with the cure of his particular disease.
The effects of the sitz bath, are, it appears, either tonic or relaxing
according to the length of time during which it is administered; if a
tonic effect is desired, a period varying from ten to fifteen minutes
is prescribed—if a relaxing or derivative effect is to be produced, the
period is extended to half-an-hour or forty-five minutes.
We should have thought it superfluous to make any observations on the
evil effects of mercury, which we thought were acknowledged by
everybody, were it not that we recently heard it designated by a much
respected physician as “a most wholesome substance,” the chief
objection to it being “that persons got too fat upon it.” This opinion
astonished us not a little, and we felt that when habit [5] and
prejudice could so pervert the mind of a physician as to make him look
upon a poisonous substance as a positive good, we could easily account
for the difficulty which has been always experienced in converting a
medical man—for the unsatisfactory state of the medical art, and its
having so long pertinaciously followed the routine practice of our
ancestors. When a mind cannot perceive the difference between black and
white, it is in vain to place less obvious differences before it. We
now quote the opinion of Dietrich as to the effects of this “wholesome”
ingredient, mercury, for the benefit of the physician in question, and
such of our readers as may hitherto have agreed with him. He tells us
that—
“Soon after salivation has been established, the blood exhibits an
inflammatory crust; at a later period its colour deepens, and its
coagulability is diminished; the proportion of clot, and,
therefore, of fibrin, to serum (or watery part) becomes smaller;
the formation of albumen and mucus sinks to that of serum; the
whole organic formation of the patient is less consistent and
cohesive.”
Which opinion is right, let the public judge. We will not prejudice
their verdict by any further observations of ours, but will merely ask
them, if mercury be proved unnecessary, how can its continued use be
defended?