Medical advice

“ There is no other treatment, drug, or medicine advertised in Great Britain to-day to cure Consumption, the ingredients of which are not known to every doctor and chemist in the world, and if you cannot obtain relief from these under the care of your own Medical Adviser, how can you be cured by using them on the advice of an American Quack. ”

“ Receiving, as she often will, instructions from the doctor, she should bear these in mind, and carefully carry them out. In those instances where she does not feel herself sufficiently informed, she should ask advice from the medical man, and not take upon herself to administer medicines, &c., without his knowledge. ”

“ We shall not advise treatment for these more grave disorders which should always, for the safety of the patient, be attended by the family physician, except to recommend some simple means which may be employed in the initial stage of the disease, or when a physician's services cannot be promptly secured. ”

“ We can treat many chronic diseases as successfully without as with a personal consultation, as our vast experience enables us to correctly determine the malady from which the patient is suffering, from a history of the symptoms, and answers to questions furnished. We have not seen one person in five hundred of those whom we have cured. ”

“ In the more dangerous, obscure, or complicated forms of chronic diseases, the correct diagnosis and successful treatment of which tax all the skill possessed by the experienced specialist, the invalid will not be misled into the dangerous policy of relying upon his own judgment and treatment, but will be counseled not to postpone until too late, the employment of a skillful physician. ”

“ The practice of medicine is every year becoming [pg 293] more successful. New and improved methods of treating disease are being discovered and developed, and the conscientious physician will avail himself of all the means, by a knowledge of which he may benefit his fellow-men. ”

“ What is it to him that you can localize and name by some uncouth term the disease which you could not prevent and which you cannot cure? An old woman who knows how to make a poultice and how to put it on, and does it tuto, eito, jucunde, just when and where it is wanted, is better,—a thousand times better in many cases,—than a staring pathologist, who explores and thumps and doubts and guesses, and tells his patient he will be better tomorrow, and so goes home to tumble his books over and make out a diagnosis. ”

“ General practitioners shall mainly provide such services as diagnosis, treatment, referral, prevention, healthcare and rehabilitation of common diseases and frequently-occurring diseases, chronic diseases management, and health management. ”

“ Your patient has no more right to all the truth you know than he has to all the medicine in your saddlebags, if you carry that kind of cartridge-box for the ammunition that slays disease. He should get only just so much as is good for him. I have seen a physician examining a patient's chest stop all at once, as he brought out a particular sound with a tap on the collarbone, in the attitude of a pointer who has just come on the scent or sight of a woodcock. ”

“ Notwithstanding all these facts, however, a knowledge on the part of the unprofessional, of something more than physiology and hygiene, and appertaining more closely to medicine proper, will many times prove valuable. ”

“ The old physicians not only believed in its general efficacy as a wonder-worker in disease, but they believed that each malady could be successfully attacked from some special part of the body,—the strategic point which commanded the seat of the morbid affection. ”

“ I take pleasure in recommending your institution to the afflicted, believing that you have the very best treatment for chronic diseases known, and I have had an opportunity to satisfy myself, from conversation with other invalids in your Institution, of the care and skillful treatment that you administer, and its excellent effects. ”

“ Thus these remedies are preventive as well as curative.
What we have thus far recommended for the treatment of this chronic affection is within the reach of every family. Patients laboring under this disease, when complicated with other affections, require special consideration and treatment, and all such are counseled to employ only those physicians whose experience and success entitle them to confidence. Health is one of the greatest of blessings, and how to restore it when lost, is a question of vital importance. ”

“ The great majority of physicians allow acute maladies, diseases of children, and the practice of midwifery, to engross most of their time and attention. They manifest an absorbing interest in everything that [pg 958] relates to these subjects, and devote little or no time to acquiring an intimate knowledge of the great variety of chronic maladies which afflict mankind. ”

“ A patient comes to you with asthma and wants to know where he can breathe; another comes to you with phthisis and wants to know where he can live. What boy's play is nine tenths of all that is taught in many a pretentious course of lectures, compared with what an accurate and extensive knowledge of the advantages and disadvantages of different residences in these and other complaints would be to a practising physician. ”

“ The specialist, the treatment of chronic diseases being his vocation, is equally annoyed if consulted by those suffering from acute diseases, but does not pursue the inconsistent course of assuming to treat them. ”

“ Believing that the diffusion of knowledge for the prevention of disease is quite as noble a work as the alleviation of physical suffering by medical skill, we have devoted a large portion of this volume to the subjects of physiology and hygiene. ”

“ The specialist, however, dealing with chronic diseases exclusively, will occasionally meet with a case which has been the rounds of the home physicians without benefit, that will tax his skill and require the exercise of all his perceptive faculties to determine the exact condition of the patient's system, upon which the obstinacy of the disease depends. When this is ascertained, the remedies will naturally suggest themselves, and the malady will generally yield to them. ”

“ And it is to the accuracy with which this system has endowed us that we owe our almost world-wide reputation for the skillful treatment of all lingering, or chronic, affections. This system of practice, with the marvelous success which has been attained through it, demonstrates the fact that diseases display certain phenomena, which, being subjected to scientific analysis, furnish abundant and unmistakable data to guide the judgment of the skillful practitioner aright in determining the nature of diseased conditions. ”

“ But in sudden and painful attacks of acute disease, life may be suddenly and unexpectedly jeopardized, and immediate relief prove necessary. While under these circumstances the prompt application of such domestic treatment as good common-sense may dictate, guided by a knowledge of those first principles of medical learning which we shall hereafter endeavor to make plain, may result in speedy and happy relief, yet at the same time there should be no delay in summoning a competent physician to the bedside of the sufferer. ”

“ We shall devote the largest amount of space to a careful and thorough consideration of those chronic diseases, which, by a little study, may be readily recognized and understood by the masses, and for the cure of which we shall suggest such hygienic treatment and domestic remedies as may be safely employed by all who are in quest of relief. ”

“ If a physician possesses knowledge that enables him to remedy diseases heretofore regarded as incurable, what virtue or modesty is there to "hide his light under a bushel"? In this free country the people think and act for themselves, and hence all have a deep concern in the subject of health. ”

“ The profession of medicine is no sinecure; its labors are constant, its toils unremitting, its cares unceasing. The physician is expected to meet the grim monster, "break the jaws of death, and pluck the spoil out of his teeth." ”

“ Every family needs a COMMON SENSE MEDICAL ADVISER. The frequent inquiries from his numerous patients throughout the land, suggested to the Author the importance and popular demand for a reliable work of this kind. Consequently, he has been induced to prepare and publish an extensive dissertation on Physiology, Hygiene, Temperaments, Diseases and Domestic Remedies. It is for the interest and welfare of every person, not only to understand the means for the preservation of health, but also to know what remedies should be employed for the alleviation of the common ailments of life. ”

“ Our improved and perfected system of diagnosing, or determining, the exact nature and extent of chronic affections, which, in most cases, we are able to do at a distance, and without a personal examination of the patient, as will be more particularly explained in the appendix, or latter part of this little book, has enabled us to avoid the blunders so often committed by the general practitioner, who not infrequently treats those afflicted with chronic ailments peculiar to women, for long weeks, and perhaps months, without ever discovering their real and true disease, or condition. ”

“ The true physician brings to his aid Physiology, Hygiene, and Medicine, and combines the science of the former with the art of the latter, that restoration may be made permanent, and the health preserved by the aid of hygiene. But when any one makes Hygiene exclusively the physician, or deals wholly in hygienic regulations with little respect for physiology, or lavishly advertises with hygienic prefixes, we may at once consider it a display, not of genuine scientific knowledge, but only of the ignorance of a quack. ”

“ Only through extensive experience can the medical practitioner become expert at detecting and successfully meeting, by rational scientific and carefully adapted treatment, the many phases and complications incident to the different forms and stages of this very prevalent malady. ”

“ Again, not only is a firm and strict compliance with medical directions in the administration of remedies, of regimen, and general measures, necessary, but an unbiased, faithful, and full report of symptoms to the physician, when he visits his little patient, is of the first importance. An ignorant servant or nurse, unless great caution be exercised by the medical attendant, may, by an unintentional but erroneous report of symptoms, produce a very wrong impression upon his mind, as to the actual state of the disease. ”

“ ADVANTAGES OF SPECIALTIES.
By thorough organization and a perfect system of subdividing the practice of medicine and surgery in this institution, every invalid consulting us is treated by a specialist—one who devotes his undivided attention to the particular class of diseases to which his or her case belongs. The advantage of this arrangement must be obvious. Medical science offers a vast field for investigation, and no physician can, within the limit of a single life-time, achieve the highest degree of success in the treatment of every malady incident to humanity. ”

“ It is possible always to do this. Even in certain of the acute diseases favorable suggestion has its place, and for all chronic cases this form of therapeutics is extremely important. The very presence of the physician, especially if he is thoroughly in control of himself, placid, imperturbed, evidently ready to use all his powers without any excitement, is of itself the strongest kind of favorable suggestion. From the very beginning of medical history the presence of the physician has in most cases meant even more than his medicines. ”

“ O'Sullivan was a fine classical scholar, and always kept in close touch with the progress of modern mathematics; many men holding chairs in that subject to-day would acknowledge him to be their master. His interest in the development of mathematical research did not interfere with his devotion to philosophy and the classics, and he probably had few equals in his knowledge of cellular pathology. He was an inspiring teacher; his laboratory was a rallying point for medical students and newly qualified physicians in search of advice and guidance. ”

“ The majority of cases yield quite promptly to the course of treatment already advised, if it is persevered in. The disease, however, sometimes proves obstinate and resists for many days the best treatment yet known to the medical profession. ”

“ I had taken leave of my family, not expecting to last the day out, when I was seen by a young doctor, who is fast becoming an eminent man, who said he thought he could alleviate my sufferings—though he did not expect to cure me. ”

“ If there happened to be among my audience any person who wished to know on what principles the patient should choose his physician, I should give him these few precepts to think over:
Choose a man who is personally agreeable, for a daily visit from an intelligent, amiable, pleasant, sympathetic person will cost you no more than one from a sloven or a boor, and his presence will do more for you than any prescription the other will order.
Let him be a man of recognized good sense in other matters, and the chance is that he will be sensible as a practitioner. ”

“ In ordinary practice, the physician's time is divided in his consideration of acute, chronic, surgical, and obstetrical cases; in fact, much of it is occupied in riding to reach his patients. His attention is continually diverted from one class of cases to another, effectually preventing investigation in any particular direction. ”