A guide to therapeutics / by Robert Farquharson.

  • Farquharson, Robert, 1836-1918.
Date:
1883
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A guide to therapeutics / by Robert Farquharson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    said, we may often anticipate uncomfortable effects by due pre- liminary inquiry, it too often happens that they come on suddenly and quite unexpectedly. Idiosyncrasy is so wide-spread and deep-rooted in the human constitution, in almost every function and action, that we can hardly hope ever to obtain the key to its mysteries. Why, may we ask, do particular articles of diet disagree with special persons 1 Why does one person, on ex- posure to cold, take a simple catarrh, whilst a second becomes a prey to rheumatic fever, and a third escapes unharmed % Until we can clear up these problems, it is vain for us to attempt to explain why we require to adapt our doses so care- fully to individual constitution and peculiarity ; and the reason why the student is at first perplexed by all this is that we meet with these differences much more frequently in the upper ranks of society. The hospital or dispensary patient swallows any dose, however nauseous, with much satisfaction, and is much less often affected by those troubles of irregular physiological action which so frequently harass the family medical attendant in more aristocratic circles. The power, therefore, and a power unfortunately too often uncommunicable to others, of appreciating the peculiarities of different persons, in respect of their ' behaviour ' towards drugs, is just one of those ' knacks ' which go far to make up success in practice. We ourselves often wonder, or share the surprise of others, why certain doctors, whose scientific attainments may be none of the highest, attract and retain in a remarkable way the confidence of their patients ; and we may be sure that some- thing beyond mere luck or manner, or accident, is the true secret of their superiority. Tact in the use of remedies is no doubt in some degree the lever which has raised them to their positions, and more especially the power which well-remembered experience has conferred upon them, of knowing intuitively, as we sometimes call it, what drugs will best agree with the indi- vidual sufferer. We yet know nothing of idiosyncrasy beyond the uncomfortable fact of its frequent and unsuspected existence, and, in proportion to our ignorance, all the more keen and per-