Notes on diseases in Turkey ; and Memoir on the remittent fever of the Levant.

  • United Kingdom. Army and Ordnance Medical Department.
Date:
1854
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Notes on diseases in Turkey ; and Memoir on the remittent fever of the Levant. 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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    When in Turkey, I could not quite coincide with the treat-' ment generally adopted. Some practitioners were even in the habit of giving tartrate of antimony in the beginning of the disease. When I passed the clinical examination for license of practice in Bucharest and Wallachia, I urged my objections to that plan ; and in honour to the president and the members of the examining body, I must state, that they left me quite at liberty to follow my own views. What I observed before concerning the similarity of the essential features, applies as well to the treatment of those diseases. J, cannot conceive of any difference. , \ The other day a medical officer proceeding to the East, asked my opinion respecting the best treatment of typhus in TJurkey. I recommended him that which he considered the beat in England. Whilst in marsh-fever medicinal inter- ference alone can do good, in typhus such is hot the case. No disease requires more judgment and tact on the part of the medical man, and less medicine, than typhus, whether in London or abroad ; it is by many littles that he carries the patient through, and I feel satisfied, that since the search for a specific has cooled down, mortality has wonderfully de- creased. I gave in Turkey, ammonia, camphor, strong beef- tea, and the best red wine I could get; and, with the exception of camphor, I have not changed this bill of fare to the present day* In one of our metropolitan hospitals brandy has been proposed. ' I tried it repeatedly in the Royal General Dis- pensary and in private, but returned to port wine, using brandy solely when symptoms of extreme faintness arc coming on. In parotidal swellings I ordered warm foraentxi- tions, with bags containing powdered camomile, and camphor rubbed on the surface. Ulcerations of the tonsils, which occurred in typhus, I treated witli a weak gargle of diluted sulph. acid. Both applications generally answered well. In