Practical notes on diagnosis, prognosis, and treatment in cases of delirium tremens / by Thomas Laycock.

  • Laycock, Thomas, 1812-1876.
Date:
1862
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Practical notes on diagnosis, prognosis, and treatment in cases of delirium tremens / by Thomas Laycock. 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.

    5/32
    The treatment of delirium tremens is still so much a matter of discussion, that I think it will be useful to examine into the ascer- tained effects of treatment, and point out what help a more careful diagnosis and prognosis may afford the practitioner. Four years ago/ I endeavoured to show how successful the expectant and rational method of treatment is, when compared with that in which opium and stimulants are freely administered. I then stated that the only fatal case of 28 I had thus treated in Infirmary and private practice daring the previous four years, was one already treated by opium. Since that date, I have had 40 cases of varying degrees of severity under care, and only one of these ter- minated fatally. That was in Ward X. of the Royal Infirmary, in which death occurred as a sequel to continuous epileptic fits in a young man exhausted by drinking and licentiousness. The obvious conclusion from these results is, that the mortality from delirium tremens under a rational and expectant treatment, from which the free use of opiates and stimulants is excluded, is ex- tremely small. On the other hand, I showed by extracts from the statistics of the cases admitted into the Royal Infirmary of Edin- burgh, that there were 481 cases treated according to the old method during the 11J years between 1st July 1839 and SOtli September 1850, of whom 125 died or 26 per cent. During portions of the period there was, however, a much higher mortality; for of the cases admitted between 1st July 1843 and 30tli September 1844, there died 41 per cent. In other hospitals and in the British army, the mortality has averaged much less, being still, however, an average of 15 per cent., under a method of treatment similar in principle to 1 Edinburgh Medical Journal, October 1858, Clinical Illustrations of the Pathology and Treatment of DoHriuni Tremens. A