Alexander Harvey

First Lines of Therapeutics Alexander Harvey

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1879 edition. Excerpt: ...through the curative powers of the organism. Ergot of Rye helps (often very efi'ectually) to arrest hsemorrhage from the womb or from the lungs. But it does so simply by exciting more quickly than Nature does the contraction of the muscular fibres of the uterus whereby the bleeding vessels are mechanically closed,or the retraction or contraction of the walls and ends of ruptured arteries, which is Nature?s way of stanching haemorrhage, or one of her ways. 14. The general facts now adduced as to Nature?s ways of Healing, will be brought under your notice hereafter in detail. The subject is one of the most important iii therapeutics; and it has bearings of the utmost consequence in relation to the whole Materia Medica. At present I merely refer to it as one that demands special consideration at this stage of our exposition of the subject before us. The whole set of facts comprised under it may be said to constitute the first lesson in therapeutics; and the student who has well learnt this lesson will have made good progress in that science. 15. (V.) It is not, however, by any means his only lesson. Indeed, in respect to the positive exercise of his profession, to the triumphs of his Art, there is a no less important lesson for him to learn in the natural history of diseases. The former lesson may be said to teach him a lesson of humility. It shews him how humble his oflice is relatively, inasmuch as it shews him that it is Nature that does all, and that where Nature fails, Art fails also. Yet happily not always. The other lesson now in view is one which teaches him how it is that in diseases that are intrinsically curable, but in which from circumstances Nature is impotent, Art may often step in and carry the day triumphantly...