Report of observations made in the British military hospitals in Belgium after the battle of Waterloo, with some remarks upon amputation / by John Thomson.

Date:
1816
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report of observations made in the British military hospitals in Belgium after the battle of Waterloo, with some remarks upon amputation / by John Thomson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    pears that only two diseases, independent of the symptomatic affections proceeding from wounds, could be said to prevail in the Belgian hospitals, the Bilious Remittent or Intermittent fevers of that country, and Hospital Gangrene. The symptoms, varieties, complications, and treatment of the former of these diseases, have been so ably and so fully treated of in the wri- tings of Tissot, Stoll, Home, Grainger, Pringle, Elsacher, and other authors, that I deem it un- necessary to offer any observations with regard to them. I shall merely remark, that it seems now to be very generally agreed among those who have had much experience in the treatment of these fevers, that they not unfrequently par- take, in their commencement particularly, of an inflammatory nature, and of course that blood letting, purgatives, and diaphoretics, are necessary in the first, while bark, stimulants, and nourishing diet, are admissible only in the latter stages. The Hectic, or secondary symptomatic fever, as well as the primary symptomatic, or inflam- matory fever, with which the wounded were affected both at Brussels and Antwerp, had a bilious character; and, in many instances, it