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Updated: June 11, 2025
Under melancholy he groups not only what we denominate by that term, but also all depressed conditions, and the paranoias, as also many cases of imbecility. The cause of mental diseases was to be found in the blood. He counselled the use of venesection, of laxatives and purgatives, of baths and stimulant remedies.
Great harm was done by the abuse of antimony, but then great harm is done by the abuse of anything, no matter how good it may be. For a time it came to be the most important drug in medicine and was only replaced by venesection. The fact of the matter is that doctors were looking for effects from their drugs, and antimony is, above all things, effective.
When there is low blood pressure, venous stasis, pulmonary congestion, cyanosis and a laboring, failing heart, intramuscular injections of ergot, with or without coincident venesection, may be the most valuable method of combating the condition. Life has been saved in this kind of sudden acute cardiac failure in valvular disease.
Venesection, for instance, has so far gone out of fashion, that, as I am told by residents of the New York Bellevue and the Massachusetts General Hospitals, it is almost obsolete in these institutions, at least in medical practice. The old Brunonian stimulating treatment has come into vogue again in the practice of Dr. Todd and his followers.
We shudder to hear what is alleged as to the prevalence of criminal practices; if back of these there can be shown organic incapacity or overtaxing of too limited powers, the facts belong to the province of the practical physician, as well as of the moralist and the legislator, and require his gravest consideration. Take the important question of bleeding. Is venesection done with forever?
Aneurysmal varix, which was frequently met with in this situation in the days of the barber-surgeons, usually as a result of the artery having been accidentally wounded while performing venesection of the median basilic vein, may be treated, according to the amount of discomfort it causes, by a supporting bandage, or by ligation of the artery above and below the point of communication.
In these cases," resumed Mr. Osmond, "connected as they are with Hyperaemia, some medical men considered moderate venesection to be indicated." He then put on his gloves saying, "The diet, of course, must be Antiphlogistic. I would give her one glass of sherry, but no more, and barley-water; it would be as well to avoid brown meats, at all events for the present.
This case also was of epileptic kind, and was cured, with some relapses, by opium administered before the commencement of the paroxysm. Whence it appears, that the methods of relieving inflammatory pains, is by removing all stimulus, as by venesection, cool air, mucilaginous diet, aqueous potation, silence, darkness.
Before his time, physicians had depended only on the color and the taste of the urine for diagnostic purposes. He proposed that they should weigh it, and even suggested that they should weigh, also, the blood, I suppose in case of venesection, for comparison's sake.
His treatment consists in venesection, purgatives, and, when pus is formed, local incision. He recommends the laying on of sponges dipped in warm water, and the internal use of honey lemonade. Opium should not be used unless the patient suffers from sleeplessness. Some of the general principles of therapeutics that Alexander lays down are very interesting, even from our modern standpoint.
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