Medical supplies

“ It is not a part of the functions of the Purveying Service to approve or disapprove requisitions for hospital supplies. This duty is performed by an officer who represents the Marine Hospital Division and who works in the office of the Medical Purveyor that the prompt handling of requisitions may not be delayed. It is greatly in your favor if you have in the eyes of the approving officer a reputation for practicing economy in the use of supplies. ”

“ Using vast quantities of these indigenous medicines, we can afford and do not neglect to have them gathered with great care, at the proper seasons of the year, so that their medicinal properties may be most reliable. Too little attention is generally paid to this matter, and many failures result from the prescribing of worthless medicines by physicians who have to depend for their supplies upon manufacturers who are careless or indifferent in obtaining the crude plants and roots from which to manufacture their medicines for the market. ”

“ Many other forms which later became realities were also recommended by him, such as the formation of a permanent hospital corps, the establishment of an army medical school, the location of a permanent general hospital at Washington and the institution of a military medical laboratory. In addition he urged the autonomy of the medical department in construction of buildings and transportation of supplies, a measure the full materialization of which is still believed to be essential to the service of the sick in war. ”

“ To the lack of employment of such a remedy in the treatment of consumption, the unparalleled fatality of the disease is largely due. In their anxiety to improve digestion and nutrition, and thus build up the tissues, physicians often lose sight of the no less important indication of restraining the destructive waste going on in the system, which overbalances the supplies furnished by absorption. The gradually increasing emaciation and loss of strength render perpetuity of the organism impossible. ”

“ Four days before the Battle of Bunker Hill the Congress "Ordered that Doct. Whiting, Doct. Taylor and Mr. Parks, be a committee to consider some method of supplying the several surgeons of the army with medicines," and further "Ordered that the same committee bring in a list of what medicines are in the medical store." ”

“ An immense army was executing, "with admirable skill and precision," a change of base. Upon this army depended the destinies of a large portion of the Confederacy. Means of transportation for the troops and their military supplies, including, as an important precautionary measure, medical stores, became an imperative necessity. The wounded and sick had also been moved, and at least placed under shelter. Surgeons, however, were unable to obtain either suitable diet or needed medicines. Requisitions failed to be promptly filled, and hence the state of things I have tried to describe. ”

“ The prophylactic supplies used for the patients consist of tin sputum cups, cardboard fillers, paper napkins, waterproof pockets, disinfectant, and books of instruction. The first three are of primary importance. The Health Department of a community usually provides these supplies, even when the nursing work is carried on by a private association. ”

“ A recent notice in the public prints of a report by the 'Drug Committee' shows that it is the wish of government, to render this country as much as possible independent of foreign aid in the medical store department, by drawing on the resources of the country itself, for the supply of those medicinal agents required in the treatment of its more prevalent and dangerous forms of disease. ”

“ Twenty men employed constantly in putting up this medicine would not have been sufficient to have complied with all the demands which were made of me for it. Hundreds who were in health called or sent for it as well as the sick, in order to have it in readiness in case they should be surprised by the disease in the night, or at a distance from a physician. ”

“ The Red Cross also operates its Blood Services, which collects and processes half of the supply of blood needed by the Nation's medical facilities. Red Cross is continuously seeking new and more economical uses for blood and blood products. ”

“ Health service logistics (HSL) personnel must train and prepare to operate in all battlefield situations. Operating in an NBC environment requires the issue of chemical patient treatment medical equipment set and chemical patient decontamination medical equipment set. ”

“ In the chemical factories every drug required by the Medical Pharmacopoeia and every chemical required in the arts and manufactures was made, but no drugs were sold except on a medical prescription, or chemicals except to responsible parties. ”

“ In addition to the above, I venture to hope that to even duly qualified Medical Officers, especially at up-country stations, a work like the present may prove serviceable on emergencies, e.g., a failure of the supply of European drugs, &c., by showing them what resources they have at command in the bazaars or in their immediate neighbourhood, by means of which many a gap may be stopped till more efficient remedies are available. ”

“ Hence it is that we claim it to be impossible for any one to put up any set prescription, or proprietary medicine, that will meet the wants of a large percentage of this class of cases. The only rational course to be pursued is to examine carefully each case as it is presented; find out the exact condition and stage of the disease with which the patient is afflicted, and then prescribe for it such special medicines as are nicely and exactly adapted to the patient's condition. ”

“ It is all very well to patch up the diseased man with drugs or what not. But at best that is a makeshift method. The Consumptive Sanatoriums have aroused enthusiasm, and they also are all very well. But the Charity Organisation Society has shown that only about 50 per cent. of those who pass through such institutions become fit for work. It is not more treatment of disease that we want, it is less need for treatment. And a State Medical Service is the only method by which Medicine can be brought into close touch with Hygiene. ”

“ 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. ”

“ As to the actual physic—the employment of medicines—it is only in some of the large endowed hospitals that {255} we can see such a dispensary as this spacious room, with its surrounding rows of bottles and drawers, its two open windows, one communicating with the men's and the other with the women's waiting room, its slabs, and scales and measures, on a central counter, where 380 prescriptions will have to be made up to-day before the alert and intelligent gentleman and his assistants who have the control of this department, will be able to replace the current stock out of the medical stores. ”

“ If certain hygienic agencies are essential to the maintenance of health, how much more necessary it is that they be employed in sickness! If certain conditions cause disease, how great the necessity is that such conditions be obviated and hygienic ones substituted! ”

“ Many a patient delays an appeal to medical aid so long, as the result of trusting to such medicines, that a curable case of consumption becomes incurable, or else develops to such a condition as to require years of treatment on the fresh-air, abundant-food plan, where months would have sufficed before. ”

“ The securing of such legislation as will authorize all surgeons in medical charge of troops, hospitals, transports, trains, and independent commands to draw from the Subsistence Department funds for the purchase of such articles of diet as may be necessary to the proper treatment of soldiers too sick to use the army ration. ”

“ It rejects, likewise, all prescriptions for the names of diseases, and by directing their application wholly to the forming and fluctuating state of diseases, and of the system, derives from a few active medicines all the advantages which have been in vain expected from the numerous articles which compose European treatises upon the materia medica. ”

“ Medicine-chest.—Every vessel of one hundred and fifty tons or upwards, navigated by ten or more persons in all, and bound on a voyage beyond the United States, and every vessel of seventy-five tons or upwards, navigated by six or more persons in the whole, and bound from the United States to any port in the West Indies, is required to have a chest of medicines, put up by an apothecary of known reputation, and accompanied by directions for administering the same. The chest must also be examined at least once a year, and supplied with fresh medicines. ”

“ In almost every family little illnesses are likely to occur, which may require medicine, though not, perhaps, the aid of a Doctor; it is, therefore, convenient to keep a small supply of common medicines in the house, especially in the country. ”

“ Pills, potions, pick-me-ups, blood purifiers, liver mixtures, lung tonics, corn cures, and preparations for tender feet appear to be the only articles of commerce that half the population of the United States trade in and manufacture. ”

“ The medicines to remedy this perverted condition of the blood and fluids must be alteratives which will act upon the digestive organs and tone the nutritive functions, thus enriching and purifying the blood. As this affection is frequently a complication in chronic diseases, it is eminently proper for us to refer to a few considerations involved in its general treatment.
An alterative medicine belongs to a class which is considered capable of producing a salutary change in a disease without exciting any sensible evacuation. ”

“ There is an apothecary's shop belonging to the hospital, where the most necessary remedies are prepared, but no expensive drug is to be found in it, and the method of administering to all the patients indiscriminately out of two or three huge bottles, full of different preparations, suffice to convince us, that the fresh air of the land, and fresh provisions here, contribute much more to the recovery of the sick, than the skill of their physicians. ”

“ All medical stores are kept in the presidency dispensaries, with branch depots at convenient places in the interior. All instruments and the greater part of medicines are imported from England. However, the Assistant-surgeon will do well to provide himself with a complete pocket dressing case and a small portable medicine chest,which he will find very useful when unattached, and when he has no access to the public stores; and if he has good mechanical hands, a portable tool chest will be of great service. ”

“ The administration of medicine, however necessary it may be to alleviate pain, or to aid in the cure of disease, is but little calculated to ameliorate the air of a crowded hospital, or to promote that cleanliness which, in such circumstances, is, of all medicaments, the most indispensable. ”

“ A traveller should be supplied with suitable housing, food and clothing, and should have a proper supply of medicines, dressings, and medical comforts.
In selecting the drugs with which the traveller should be provided before leaving home care should be taken to see that only reliable products be purchased. In the tropics, and in exploration generally, the medical outfit is subjected to very severe tests, and it is a mistaken policy to economise on medicines. ”

“ Although the proprietors of the most popular proprietary medicines in the market, medicines carefully adapted to the cure of the diseases for which they are recommended, yet, should we attempt to get up a general remedy to cure spermatorrhea and kindred maladies, we are certain it would be an utter failure, and this is entirely true of all such preparations now and heretofore offered for sale, and, from the very nature of the diseases they are recommended to cure, ever must be. ”

“ In closing, permit me again to stress the need for economy in the use of all supplies required by governmental hospitals, for an earnest effort to use the equipment provided to its utmost efficiency and an honest effort to get the most out of all the expendable supplies used in the treatment of the patients committed to our care. If we are honest in these efforts we will have no difficulty in convincing both Houses of Congress of the justness of our requests for funds to carry out the purpose committed to us. ”

“ One reason why we excel in the treatment of chronic diseases is the fact that we are supplied with all the modern improvements in the way of instruments, appliances and remedial agents used in the healing art, the expense of which deters the local physician in general practice from procuring, for the treatment of the limited number of cases that come within the circuit of his practice. ”

“ No one shall be subjected to forcible medical treatment or sanitary measures except in circumstances established by law. (5) The state shall exercise control over all medical facilities and over the production and trade in pharmaceuticals, biologically active substances and medical equipment. ”

“ 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. ”