On the effects of minute doses of mercury in restoring the vital functions / [Alexander Philips Wilson Philip].

  • Philip, Alexander Philip Wilson, 1770-1847
Date:
[1832]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the effects of minute doses of mercury in restoring the vital functions / [Alexander Philips Wilson Philip]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    u / EFFECTS of MINUTE DOSES of MERCURY IN RESTORING THE VITAL FUNCTIONS. By A. P. W. PHILIP, M.D. F.R.S.L.&E. (From the Loudon Medical Gazette.) It is now about five-and-twenty years since I first began to employ minute and frequently-repeated doses of mer¬ cury. 1 was led to them by observing, that the more the dose was lessened, and its frequency increased, the alterative effects of the medicine were the greater, pretty much in the same proportion as the immediate effects of each dose be¬ came less. It has long been my wish to lay before the profession the whole of the circumstances which influence this practice; but these are so numerous, and some of them, from the nature of disease, so complicated, that I have found it difficult to arrange the subject in a way that would give to others a clear and full view of it, and have thus hitherto been deterred from the at¬ tempt. Having, in the early part of this prac¬ tice, met with a few fortunate cases, I imagined that it was difficult to assign limits to its beneficial effects in a certain description of diseases. By degrees, however, these limits became apparent, but they have left a field more than suf¬ ficient to compensate for the pains I have bestowed on the subject. 1 have found, that with an attention to the circumstances which I am about to stale, the minute doses never do harm, and this I believe cannot be said of any other mode of ex¬ hibiting mercury, and that in a wide range of cases, both original and sym¬ pathetic, they effect what cannot be ef¬ fected by any other means with which we are acquainted; and it is particu¬ larly grateful to my feelings that 1 have now obtained the testimony of many of my professional brethren to confirm my belief that they have been the means of saving many lives, which could not other¬ wise have been saved. Large doses of mercury cannot be frequently repeated without often ren¬ dering the remedy as pernicious as the disease, and sometimes more so; and when they are given at distant intervals, the effect of one dose is frequently lost before another is taken ; so that it often happens that little or no progress is made in the cure, and there is nothing but temporary relief to compensate for the debilitating effects of each dose; while, with respect to the minute doses, although each does little, this little it does without any strain to the consti¬ tution, and the next dose comes before the effect is lost; so that a gradual accu¬ mulation of the beneficial effect is ob¬ tained, and that, if the circumstances I am about to point out be attended to, without any injurious effects to deduct from it. I need hardly say to those acquainted with our profession, that, in attempting to introduce the plan of treatment I atn about to lay before the reader, I have had much opposition to contend with. This I have always regarded as a neces¬ sary effect of the nature of that profes¬ sion, and have borne it patiently. When new plans are every day suggested, of which not one in a thousand proves to be of any value, we are naturally in¬ clined to turn a deaf ear to the sanguine expressions of our brethren, when they