Report of a Committee of the associate medical members of the Sanitary Commission on the subject of pneumonia.

  • United States. Sanitary Commission.
Date:
1862
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report of a Committee of the associate medical members of the Sanitary Commission on the subject of pneumonia. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    method of treatment cannot be relied upon for effecting the objects just named. If this method ever succeeds in arrest- ing pneumonia, the chance of success in any case is too small to justify its employment whenever it comes into conflict with other indications, or, in other words, whenever it will be likely to do harm if it do not succeed. Abortive measures, other than those commonly known as antiphlogistic, do not require notice, and, indeed, there are none, at the present moment, before the profession. Putting aside arrest of the disease as an object of treat- ment in the first stage, the inquiry arises. May not active measures, in this stage, so influence the disease as to diminish its intensity, and thereby the danger, aiding the patient to pass through it more safely and comfortably, if not more quickly, than if the measures were not employed ; and will not blood- letting conduce to these desirable ends ? A candid review of the discussions which have taken place within the last few years respecting blood-letting in pneumonia, together with the results of clinical experience, can hardly fail to lead to the conviction that, employed indiscriminately, it will do much more harm than good. This, it must be admitted, may be true, and yet blood-letting be useful in certain cases. Its use- fulness is limited to cases characterized by high febrile move- ment, the patients being robust or of a full habit, and, of course, the disease not advanced to the second stage, when a pound or more of solid matter has been withdrawn from the blood to constitute the solidifying deposit. The abstraction of blood, if the pulse be strong, the skin hot, and the pain severe, with more or less dyspnoea, will undoubtedly afford relief, and sometimes, perhaps, place the patient in a better condition than if no active treatment had been resorted to. But even in the cases to which blood-letting is to be restricted, if employed at all, may not other measures be substituted