The commencement of a practical system of medicine : to meet the premonitions of disease, and to secure on rational principles more uniform popular benefit, on the immediate and absolute requirements of nature, through her earliest co-operation : with permanent and satisfactory pledges, as to the medicine used in all the departments of fevers of general character / by Thomas J. Vaiden.

  • Vaiden, Thomas J.
Date:
1845
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The commencement of a practical system of medicine : to meet the premonitions of disease, and to secure on rational principles more uniform popular benefit, on the immediate and absolute requirements of nature, through her earliest co-operation : with permanent and satisfactory pledges, as to the medicine used in all the departments of fevers of general character / by Thomas J. Vaiden. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    the tonics. No mercury nor lancet was used. Very little of the first, and the lancet not at all, have been used for the whole term of this practice. The tonic pills are the principal or main medicine men- tioned for much of the report—generally the mixture follows. For more than two years no physician has been called in. The prac- tice has proved successful in every case—and I have had some very severe attacks in my family since I commenced with this practice, and have not lost the first case. An allusion.is made to the custom of sending too late for the physician, and what is worse than all, the charge is laid to the physician. The abiding confidence in this prac- tice is most favorably expressed, and gives evidence, from one popular voice of intellect, reflecting the practical and good sense of the family, that in place of a deficient, a conservative practice is happily intro- duced. No. 2. The continued report of a second family, speaks of the use of the same system to entire satisfaction. Some twenty months' trial has been made. The lancet has been used once during that time. A large majority of the cases has been cured without mercury. A recent case of vomit and fever is mentioned as cured by the tonics ex- clusively. My confidence in these pills is increased by their use— certainly Dr. V. has attended four cases in all. I believe firmly .that the greatest number of cases is treated in the family before the physician first sees the cases, in this country. No. 3. Another head of a family says, I have used Dr. V's pills the past year, and I am satisfied with the result of the practice in my family. There were several cases of chill and fever, &c. I am pleased to say but little mercury was used, and that only in two cases of general affection. The lancet was not used at all. No. 4. Continued report. Only one visit, and that a passing one, has been paid this family for more than two years. More than eighty cases in all have been cured—some dozen are included in this last report. The worst fever did not last more than three days. A case of diarrhea and indigestion; also, two cases of very young infants, some five or six days old, are detailed. In the diarrhea, which was protracted by distance of the party from home, there was much pain, cramp, and considerable fever. This was cured by the continued fever treatment. To one of the infants was given one-twelfth of a tonic pill dissolved in breast milk. It had difficulty of swallowing, something like the croup. The other was affected with apparently excessive pain. The same course was used in this case—both were purged with sweet oil, and got well. Several cases of chill and fever have been cured ; and never, in any of these cases alluded to, has the second chill returned : two thirds of them have been cured without mercurials. In such cases the mixture purgative is used; the regular use of which was urged by Dr. V. last April, as a general thing, to several of our families. Symptoms in delicate cases of fe- males, tending to miscarriage, were arrested by the pills. They have had fine effect on monthly irregularity, proved in two cases. No lan- ret has been used at all for two years, since July past. The tonics