DISEASES OF THE EYE. 53 



'mercurials.' The confident belief in their power of causing ab- 

 sorption of lymph, by operating on the blood, is not only opposed 

 to sound theory, but, like blood-letting, is not supported by ex 

 perience, which has been so confidently appealed to in their favor. 

 I can not, therefore, resist the conclusion that the principles which 

 led to an antiphlogistic practice in inflammation were erroneous, 

 and are no longer in harmony with the existing state of pathology. 

 1 think it has been further shown, that in recent times our success 

 in treatment has been great just in proportion as we have aban- 

 doned ' heroic remedies/ and directed our attention to furthering 

 the natural progress of the disease. 



Internal inflammations are cured, not by bleeding and drugs, 

 but by a natural process as distinct and definite as the process of 

 normal nutrition. What we may do by our interference, may 

 either aid, promote, and even accelerate, this natural tendency to 

 get well, or it may very seriously impair and retard, and even 

 altogether stop, that salutary process. If, then, this view of the 

 nature of the means by which inflammation is resolved in internal 

 organs be correct, it is not unreasonable to assume that a very de- 

 pressed state of vital power is unfavorable to the healing process. 



Indeed, if you watch those cases in which nothing at all has 

 been done, or in which nothing has been done to lower the vital 

 powers, you will find that the mere inflammatory process itself, 

 especially in an organ so important as the lung, depresses the 

 strength of the patient each day more and more. You will per- 

 ceive, then, that, according to these views, there are strong a priori 

 reasons in favor of the policy of upholding our patients, even in 

 the earliest stages of acute diseases, by such food as may be best 

 suited to their digestive organs, such as is most readily assimi- 

 lated, and calls for the least effort, the smallest expenditure of 

 vital force for its primary digestion — nutritive matters, tea 

 sweetened milk, etc., and also alcohol, which is directly absorbed 

 and tends to keep up the heat of the body. 



If, then, it has been satisfactorily shown, in consequence of our 

 advanced knowledge of diagnosis and pathology, that an anti- 

 phlogistic practice is opposed to the cure of diseases, it follows that 

 many of the principles which have hitherto guided us in their 

 treatment must be considerably modified. That medical practice 

 has undergone a great revolution during the last fifteen years, is 

 a fact already «o well established that it can be no longer denial. 



