The importance of general therapeutics in the treatment of ocular diseases : an address delivered in the Section on Opthalmology of the American Medical Association, at the fifty-fifth annual session, June, 1904 / by A. Maitland Ramsay, M.D.

  • Ramsay, A. Maitland (Andrew Maitland), 1859-1946.
Date:
1905
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Licence: In copyright

Credit: The importance of general therapeutics in the treatment of ocular diseases : an address delivered in the Section on Opthalmology of the American Medical Association, at the fifty-fifth annual session, June, 1904 / by A. Maitland Ramsay, M.D. 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.

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    sonal power has the obvious advantage of in- spiring the patient with hope at a time when the disease may seem to be pressing on with such resistless force that he is beginning to despair, it has the disadvantage that the influ- ence of the doctor dies with him. His succes- sors may model themselves on his manner and methods, but there must always be a difference. That leads me to say that one of the greatest hindrances to a proper study of therapeutics is the ease with which remedies are supplied to the doctor by the manufacturing chemist. 1 hese drugs, the products of the chemical laboratory, are advertised largely, and are said to effect so much good that there is a great temptation to try them, and if, perchance, urgent symptoms disappear after their use, they are only too apt to be employed indiscriminately. The mixtures so supplied are elegant and palatable, and the pills, tabloids, etc., are very convenient and easily swallowed; but it is only when he writes his own prescriptions that the practitioner can make himself so thoroughly familiar with the properties of drugs, that he is at once able to vary his formula to suit the needs and idiosyncrasies of an individual patient. There is much to be said