A new and easy method for the subcutaneous application of morphia : without the pain, risk and expense of the hypodermic syringe / by John M. Crombie.

  • Crombie, John Mann, 1844-1883.
Date:
1873
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A new and easy method for the subcutaneous application of morphia : without the pain, risk and expense of the hypodermic syringe / by John M. Crombie. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    r visibly, in a .short time, re-invigorating her shattered fiame. For eight months she has employed this treatment daily, and will continue it, for it has become one of the first necessities of her existence. As a parallel and still more instructive instance, I shall take the liberty of quoting I)r. Lawson’s own case, recorded in his excellent treatise on Sciatica, Lum- bago, and Brachialgia :—“ Indeed I am not outstepping plain matter of fact when I assert that in the method ol treatment proposed and most patiently carried out by that gentleman, I owe my restoration to health. For six months I had hardly known what sleep was, notwithstanding the administration of opiates three and four times a day. Appetite was utterly lost, physical power was prostrate ; mind, through long suffer- ing, was enfeebled to that degree that I look back to that period of my existence with astonishment and horror. I was indeed fast sinking into the grave, a victim to what the philosophy of modern physic styled a symptom, and which it was not considered necessary to deal with in any but a secondary degree. Five minutes after the first injection of morphia, I experienced the only ease I had known for six months, and I need not say that by a continuance—necessarily protracted in so grave a case—I was in a few months restored to perfect health.” The relief of pain in Dr. Lawson’s case was manifestly the cure of the disease—a disease (sciatica) which had reduced him to the condition of a helpless invalid. While, therefore, it may be asserted as nearly absolutely certain that the relief of severe pain is sought at present almost exclusively iii some form of opium, and that a large proportion of cases are, in consequence of debility, tendency to sickness and headache, or other constitutional peculiarities unfit for treatment by the usual method, it is highly important that the subcutaneous method should be made as simple, painless, and inexpensive as possible. It is with this view that I propose the hypodermic suppository in place of the hypodermic syringe. For although the syringe has done excellent service, and has been improved by several makers since its introduction, it is needless to repeat that the sub-