History of medical practice in Illinois - Bushnell Historical Society

1Internal Medicine 1 1terested, as attested to by his campaign of over fifty years to raise the standardof medical teaching. He furnished many instructive and informativeaccounts of ward walks in the Illinois General Hospital.The Journal of the American Medical Association published an articleon "Prevalence of Quackery in America" by Dr. James H. Stuart; also areport taken from the English literature on the "Protective Powers of VaccinationAgainst Smallpox," and reports of cerebrospinal arachnitis,empiric use of aconite in fevers and neuralgias, and poisoning by arsenic,opium and mercury. In the section on Principles of Therapeutics, it wasstated that "combination of several articles of like properties will increasethe aggregate effects,"thethus giving support to the "shotgun prescriptions"or multipharmacy which was so prevalent at that time and for several decadesthereafter.Chicago, in1851, reported 216 deaths from cholera and "much smallpox."1852Dr. Samuel Thompson, President of the Illinois State Medical Society,delivered an address on "The Nature of Disease," in which he said: "Be notthe first by whom the new is tried, nor yet the last to lay the old aside. . . .Use known facts and remedies; proceed cautiously for we are only in theinfancy of medical science. ... As sensible men we cannot do more thanto restore health; whatever is more or less than this is evil. We cannot removeanything from the body except by the natural organs, unless mechanically,for we cannot add one thereto; neither can we act through the organsexcept through the natural impressabilities and forces and functions withwhich, in a state of health, they are endowed. To understand, therefore,their healthful duties and sensibilities; to aid these when their powers fail,by the appropriate stimuli; to soothe them when they act too much fromover-excitement; to take care that all the matters inimical to health, eitheras regularly produced within the organism, or as taken from without, bethey ingesta, or malaria, whether of terrestrial or animal origin, appear tome to contribute some of the most important duties of practice."Dr. N. S. Davis, always the indefatigable worker and writer, was Chairmanof the Committee on Medical Practice and set down the followingobjectives of the Committee: (1) Improvements effected in Illinois in managementof individual diseases, and (2) progress of epidemics, referring, asoccasion required, to medical topography and to the character of prevailingdiseases in special localities, during the term of their service. The committeeas a whole recommended use of pyroligneous acid as a gargle; the useof collodion repeatedly in variola to prevent pitting or at least to lessen itgreatly, and the use of sodium chloride as a remedial agent. They were not,however, in full agreement with the recommendation of Dr. A. G. Henry