Medical treatment

“ In no class of diseases is greater care, scientific knowledge and skill more necessary than in the treatment of nervous affections. Almost every case is a law unto itself, and must receive careful consideration, pains-taking advice and specially prescribed treatment suited to the peculiarities of the individual. Hereditary influences, causes of the disease and constitutional peculiarities of the patient must all be taken into account. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Therapeutic doses—those given for medical treatment—by contrast, are given to patients with a disease that is in need of control, that is, the physician desires to destroy selectively cells or tissues that are abnormal. In these cases, therefore, the skill and experience of the attending physician must be applied to limit the effects to the desired benefits, without damage to healthy organs. ”

“ Owing to the imperfect state of our knowledge, the treatment of disease ordinarily pursued by judicious practitioners, partakes of both kinds; it is rational so far as the curative effect is sought through a primary influence on some or other of the natural functions followed by consecutive changes thence resulting; empirical, when from obscurity in the modus operandi, and failure in discerning the series of vital actions through which the cure takes place, this the ultimate effect can be alone perceived. ”

“ 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. ”

“ When informed that they do not need medicine and that outside treatment is unnecessary, they find it difficult to believe, for disease has always called for treatment of some kind in the hands of the medical profession. When further told that they have to help themselves by living so that they will not put any obstacles in the way of normal functioning of their bodies, they think that the physician who thinks and talks that way must be a crank, and many seek help where they are told that they can obtain health from pills, powders and potions or from various inoculations and injections. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Nature never hurries; atom by atom, little by little, she achieves her work.
Our Improved Treatment. Tears ago our specialists resolved to pay particular attention to the investigation and treatment of these diseases, which are not only alarmingly prevalent, but sadly neglected and mistreated by the general practitioner of medicine.
Unfailing Remedies. Having successfully treated many thousands of cases, we can safely say of our remedies that they are very positive in their remedial effects. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ A vast variety of the approaches known to medical science has been explored to find better methods of treatment and prevention of major diseases, particularly heart diseases, cancer, and mental illness. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ What such people need, much more than the dwellers in settled communities, is to learn the views of modern medicine upon the treatment of the ever-present common ailments—the use of standard remedies, cautions against the abuse of narcotics, lessons of discrimination against harmful, useless, or expensive "patent medicines," and proper rules of conduct for diet, nursing, and general treatment. ”

“ The general progress of medical science in all directions has been manifested in the department of psychiatry by improved methods of treatment, in the way of sleep-producing and alleviating drugs, dietetics, physical culture, hydrotherapy and the like. ”

“ 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. ”

“ No less than three hundred and seventy forms of disease, including diseases of women, diseases of children, chronic diseases, as well as those of a surgical nature are accurately described and the most successful methods of treatment made known. ”

“ In the chapter on the Uncertainty of Medicine, I treated quite at large of the vis medicatrix naturæ, or the tendency of the system to throw off disease, and thus cure itself. In the great majority of cases of sickness which fall under the care of the physician, this recuperative power is competent to effect a cure if they are left to themselves, and in most of them it will do so, even though a positively bad treatment may be pursued. ”

“ The results displayed in the post mortem findings cited, and the comparisons made in the statement that follows, are tangible assets in the claim that, in the absence of defects in the organs of the body, abstinence from food, with other natural health-giving and health-preserving accompaniments, is the unfailing remedy for the cure of functional ills. The physician and the patient from the outset of the treatment possess the assurance of recovery; and confidence that rests on infallible natural law is in itself of the greatest assistance in accomplishing results. ”

“ Modern medicine, on the other hand, declares that disease must be studied in the living person of the patient. And the same disease may require different treatment, if the condition of the patient is different. ”

“ If we can ever settle down to the rational way of regarding these things, we shall discover, what sensible medical men have always known, and what druggists as well as mere laymen can not afford to neglect, that there is no such thing as a panacea, and that all rational therapeutics is based on common sense study of the disease—finding out what is the cause and endeavoring to abate that cause. The cause may be such that surgery is indicated, or serum, or regulation of diet, or change of scene. ”

“ Exclusive attention to Therapeutics is apt to bring a man dangerously near to Homoeopathy and other pretended Systems of treatment, but sound pathology, and diagnosis controlled by post-mortem inspection, give positive knowledge and that union of modest self-confidence and prudent enterprise which become the physician. ”

“ The Methodists, it should be added, deserve special credit for having been the first to introduce and carry into effect the systematic treatment of chronic diseases; and, as a general proposition, it may be said that their treatment of all forms of disease was thoroughly practical, free from all tendency to resort to magical methods, and based largely on the employment of such hygienic measures as the use of baths of different kinds (hydrotherapy) , massage, moderate outdoor exercise, passive movements, sea voyages, fasting, regulation of the diet, etc. ”

“ The action of the remedies in this division, which are the surest and most potent of all those that are employed in the treatment of disease, is involved in a greater degree of doubt and obscurity than that of any other class. ”

“ Never permit the patient, or those around him, to expect more from medicines than medicines can perform.
'3. Never prescribe medicines, except avowedly as mere palliatives, when the period is gone by for them to be of ultimate service.
'4. Never conceal the general intention of the treatment; that is, whether it be adopted with a view to cure, or only to mitigate the disease, or merely to alleviate a symptom or symptoms.
'5. Never prescribe medicines more powerful than are necessary; or continue a powerful medicine longer, or repeat it oftener, than the disease actually requires. ”

“ To discuss with anything like completeness the practical applications of what would be commonly considered as hygienic rules in the treatment of disease would be to write a treatise on nursing, and would also include a large part of the practice of medicine, for regimen is the more important half of practical therapeutics. ”

“ Future medicine will be largely prophylactic, preventive, sanitary, hygienic, dietetic. What holds true of medicine in general holds true of that particular branch of it that deals with neurosis. The treatment will become largely prophylactic, preventive, educational, or pedagogic. ”

“ For these notes show that here too he had reached the same conclusion which we noted in the foregoing, namely, that the results produced by physicians in treating the sick depend upon securing the attention of the patient in favor of a certain diagnosis and the proper medicine to be taken for the supposed disease. In fact he says, convincingly, that “all medical remedies affect the body only through the mind.” The one who takes medicine must believe in medicine and anticipate the desired result. The result is then created by the believer. ”

“ In these days, when the physical methods of treating disease are so largely supplementing, and even supplanting, the methods of what may be termed chemical therapeutics, the question of suitable health resorts is one which must engage the attention of every medical man who is anxious to do his best for his patient. ”

“ To this end must be added the one thing needful, personal fitness, sagacity in recognizing the peculiarities of individual cases, and in adapting the treatment of them, hygienic, dietetic, and medicinal, to the special requirements of each. In a word, the physician must never forget that he has a patient as well as a disease to treat. ”

“ 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. ”

“ In ancient and medieval times, however, other than chemical agencies were supposed to be efficient in the cure of diseases, and the primitive animistic conception of the cause of illness, and hence of the therapeutics of disease, long held sway among those who practised the medical art. ”

“ To physicians who are students not alone of the manifestations of disease but also of the workings of human nature, there are few chapters in the history of medicine more interesting than those which record the welcome by each generation of the supposed advances in the treatment of disease. Each generation announced its cures for diseases, provided its remedies to relieve symptoms, and invented methods of treatment that seemed to put off the inevitable tendency toward dissolution. ”

“ It is a very narrow and unjust view of the practice of medicine, to suppose it to consist altogether in the use of powerful drugs, or of drugs of any kind. Far from it. “The physician may do very much for the welfare of the sick, more than others can do, although he does not, even in the major part of cases, undertake to control and overcome the disease by art. It was with these views that I never reported any patient cured at our hospital. ”