J. A. Thacker
Published: 2018-01-20
Total Pages: 102
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Excerpt from The Cincinnati Medical News, Vol. 13: October, 1880 Risks are our mutual and necessary heritage, as physi cians. Half the doses we give involve more or less of uncertainty and peril. In assuming such responsibility, we are justified by previous experience, or present emer genoy, one or both. Conscience clears us, the world ih dorses. Different cases entail varying degrees of justifi able risk. So it is with hypodermic medication. In a thousand cases we inject harmless drugs just under the skin, with almost no risk at all. In the next case, perhaps, we purposely risk all on a deep puncture, or an irritant substance, to save a fast waning life. I have passed my needle its full length into the thigh, perpendicular to the surface, and thrown in twenty m. Of chloroform in a case of obstinate and intense sciatica. I would not hesitate to repeat the measure if needful. I have premeditatedly frescoed one'patient with abscesses from the free and re peated injection of ammonia in a case of reputed snake bite. The man recovered. It was a serious alternative, but life was worth the abscesses. I would do it in similar cases again. And for hypodermicism I only claim, and believe I can substantiate the proposition, that injections are no more inconvenient, or hazardous, than other meth ods of treatment of more general use; and the physician who neglects it through fear, or indolence, fails in his duty both to himself and his patrons. The instruments are cheapened to the extent of being within financial reach of all, and have been vastly improved in the last few years. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.