The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1870-11-10
Treatment Of Disease...yiews Of Sensible
Physiciaj. s'9'

Physician.
At the recent annual meeting of the British
Medical Association, held at New-castle-upon,
Tyne, DIR. Francis Sibson, of London, delivered
an address which is worthy of remark The
strictly professional parts in relation to medis
cines and pharmacy belong to the doctors the
best points of the address are those which claim
everybody's attention. Patients, nurses and
friends are alike interested. After alluding to
the remedies of the pharmacopaia,, the doctor
went on to say: "Side by side with the use of
medicine, and not second to it, was the so-callcd
hygienic, treatment of disease, the study and
regulation of the vital forces. The influence
that every physician exercised upon the mind;
and through the mind upon the body; the
soothing or stimulating of their nervous power;
the calming of exaltation or the stirring up of
apathy; the quieting of the over-busy brain or
the spurring of the faccid will; the repose of
over-used powers or the awakening Of suspend
ed vital functions; the subduing of the over
sensitive skin or stimulating of it when wan,
muddy and lifeless; the limiting of supplies to
an over-fed frame, or the repair of the body,
wasting by disease, by the proper kind of food
and stimulants; the bringing into play, and so
wasted and paralyzed by disease-these were all
among the aims that the. physician sought to
accomplish. - - , es',,,'
And in accomplishing these aims, the infu.
ence of nurses and of all friends who frequent
the room of the invalid is as useful as the in
fuence of the physician. 'Rest and ease," DR..
Sibson says, are the features of the treatment
he had applied to acute diseases for many years,
especially to rheumatism and gout: He SUBJ
mits his patients to "rigid system of absolute
rest, protection from internal injury; gentle
pressure, equal warmth, and the removal OF
chiefly by treatment from without" 1t was
formerly fayorite notion with physicians that
the nature of the remedy should be concealed
from the patient. DR.. S. fayors the reverse OF
this. He "gives his patients no colored or fla
vored liquid to make them think they Were
taking medicine when they were not doing so:
because they dld1not think it quite right; and
did not find it needful to employ such PLANTED
system of fiction. If physicians did so they
complicated their observations and deprived
themselves of the help that the patient could
give them, when he understood the aim of the
method of treatment. Whatever might be the
line of treatment adopted for disease the infu-
ence of treatment on disease itself was less than
the physician was apt to think. The great
majority of diseases tended to get well. They
had, so to speak, lifetime Of their own, with
its periods Of growth; maturity and declinej
they were the passing tenants Of the body
which they occupied, often with great injury,
for limited time: Treatment could not change
their nature, could not expel them at once;
could not quench them; could not materially
shorten OF pf6lone their e&istencs. But the
treatment could lesson the suferings of the
body occupied by the disease, shield it from
other injury, repair its waste and support and
reinforce its powers; while it Gould ward of
those causes which tended to increase OF re-
awaken the disease, and lessen the intensity of
its action, infammatory or otherwise especially
upon the local structures. To watch; not, so to
speak, the remedy and its immediate effects,
but the disease itself, and its behavior during
certain method of treatment" $50, e,,l,5
The remarks of this London physician ars
not here quoted as indicating system Of prac-
tice new or unknown in this country. Amerii
can physicians of eminence gave long proceeds
ings upon the same enlightened principles.
But our chief object is to remind others than
physicians how much they may do in promoting
recovery, or warding off dangerous disease, by
cheerful and rational conduct in sick room
and by close attention to the personal comfort
and the quiet of the patient. Fussy impatience.
because no magical results seem to follow :;
doctors prescription, often defeats the enc
which would be quietly accomplished if the
the patient were encouraged to hope, or were a.
least left alone. The nursing and the genera;
demeanor of friends and attendants are of o.
much consequence to the patient as the skill OF
the physician.-Philadelphia Lsdyers