Remarks on the history and treatment of delirium tremens / by John Ware.

  • Ware, John, 1795-1864.
Date:
1831
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Remarks on the history and treatment of delirium tremens / by John Ware. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    by the assistance of art, or the patient will die. It is possible that the common impression which has been produced on our minds concerning this, is erroneous in two points of view ; I. We have concluded that sleep is the cause of the salutary change which takes place in the disease ; and 2, that sleep in whatever way induced, will have the same effect, and that it is therefore to be induced by artificial means. In order to determine, concerning any disease, what influence our remedies actually exert upon it, we must first ascertain what will be its course and termination if suffered to go through its usual series of changes without the interference of art. This is a point in the history of diseases to which reference should always be had in deciding upon the principles, or calculating the efficacy of the treatment to be em- ployed. This is particularly desirable in those dis- eases, which, like that now under consideration, have but recently become the subjects of medical observa- tion and inquiry. I have witnessed a considerable number of cases of Delirium Tremens in which the patient, after the es- tablishment of the paroxysm, has been left to contend with it, without the administration of any remedy whose tendency was to cut it short, or in any decided way to modify its symptoms. The active treatment has been confined to the period of indisposition pre- ceding the paroxysm ; and after its accession articles of a negative character alone were administered, with the exception sometimes of purgatives. The result