Taenia cured by ol. terebinthinae / [Robert Hartle].

  • Hartle, Robert, 1775-1860.
Date:
1818]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Taenia cured by ol. terebinthinae / [Robert Hartle]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    18£0. Mr Lillett on Nitrous Acid. 54S cases treated by an officer commanding a detachment, without medical aid, one only died, and this a woman six or eight months gone with child. The great good effects of this sudden and powerful counter-irritation were strikingly illustrated in the case of a European, who received immediate relief to the burn¬ ing sensation at the stomach on the acid blister being applied; and who, the next morning, being annoyed with spasms of the extremities, requested the same remedy might be applied ; it was accordingly done, and so great was the relief obtained to one leg, that he cried for God's sake to apply it to the other, si¬ milarly affected. Another striking instance was that of a Lascar, seized while cutting wood a koss from camp, and who, on being brought in, w'as supposed to be past recovery, his stools passing away in¬ voluntarily, pulse imperceptible, and extremities cold ; the acid blister was applied to the stomach, and the patient got well. Mr Powell uses two parts of acid to one part of water, and with this mixture rubs the surface over the part affected, to such an extent as may be thought necessary ; as soon as the patient complains of pain, he neutralizes the acid, by washing the surface with a solution of salt of tartar ; the cuticle can now be easily detached, and leaves the cutis raw, upon which he ap¬ plies a common blister to keep up the irritation. He employs, besides, small doses of camphor and opium, frequently repeated, to allay the irritation at the stomach; this, writh emollient ene- mata, forms his whole method of cure. I will conclude with saying, that the (forty-one) patients treated with the acid blister were all admitted in such a state, that no blood wras attempted to be drawn. Letter to S. IIeward, Esq. Superintending Surgeon, Presidency, from William Scott, Surgeon, Madras. In a letter to the Superintending Surgeon, dated 8th April last, I noticed some of the effects of the nitrous acid, used as a substitute for cantharides blister in cases of cholera. I have now the honour to enclose some remarks on the more extended use of that application, which, should you think them worthy of notice, I will be thankful to you to forward to the Medical Board. With this remedy in our hospitals, it should no longer in urgent cases be observed in the journals, that the 44 blister did not succeed, or, 44 the blister wras applied, bu could not be kept in its place, for no circumstance can preven the application of the acid, and its action, when applied, cannot possibly fail. Saint Thomas's Mount, 9th July 1819.