Rensselaer Union and Jasper Republican, Volume 8, Number 38, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 June 1876 — Medical Progress. [ARTICLE]

Medical Progress.

A comparison of the early and latter part of the last cen’cnnial period furnishes many striking points of contrast. Of course it cannot be ejected in this paper to go into details: I must confine myself to leading characteristics. A very marked contrast relates to the use of certain potential measures of treatment, such as blood-letting, cathartics, emetics, blisters, or other methods of counter-irrita-tion, the use of mercurial remedies, etc. Comparatively these are but little employed at the present time. This therapeutical change is by no means proof that these measures are not useful. Their usefulness has heretofore undoubtedly in many instances been overestimated, and it is not improbable that further progress in medical experience will show that they are now under estimated. One reason.for their being used with more circumspection and reserve is, the ends for which they were employed, owing to improvements in materia medica and pharmacy, are now accomplished by remedies which involve less repugnance on the part of the patient, and which are Jess liable to do harm if injudiciously employed. In this point of view, therefore, the change denotes progress in- knowledge. Perhaps nowhere more than in this country is the practice of medicine characterized by the change just adverted to. Potential drugs kinds are less used now than heretoinreL This is due in a measure to a better knowledge than formerly of their operation, acquired by accumulated clinical experience and experiments on the lower animals. But it is in a great measure attributable to the results of the study within late years of the natural history of diseases. This

term embraces the laws regulating the termination, the puration, the phenomena and the complications of diseases, irrespective of the operation of active measures of treatment. The importance of this study has been for the past.half century more appreciated than formerly. As opportunities have ottered, it has been prosecuted with much zeal and patience. Physicians in this country have taken not an insignificant part in the prosecution of ttiis study. —The —results have shown that many diseases are-self-limited in duration, and pursue a favorable course without active medicinal interference, and, as a consequence, there is a greater reserve no.w than heretofore in the use of potential drugs. And in proportion to this reserve a greater importance has been attached to what may ■be distinguished as sanitary measures of treatment, such as ventilation, regulation of temperature, etc. It is undoubtedly true that many diseases are more successfully managed on account of these changes. In the dietetic management of the sick there has been great improvement The recognition of the importance of supporting the powers of life by an adequate alimentation, together with the judicious use of aicobolic stimulants, is one ol the striking characteriMlcs-of progress in the pracifce bf medicine during the last half century. — Harper's Magazine.

Alassachusetts turns a deaf ear to the prospectuses of mine dealers in Nevada and Colorado, bcJieving that she has a better mine within her own borders than any they can produce. The Chipman lode at Newburyport is being actively worked by a company which has already sunk a shaft to a depth of 185 feet, with drifts at the 60-foot and 100-foot levels, one of them now in 500 feet, and have also two tunnels well under way. At .present the companv employs seventy mtn, and it is claimed takes out an average of between four and five tons a day, which will assay SIOO to the ton. The work has been in progress for a year'in whicli time it is reported between $24,000 and $25,000 worth of silver has been taken out, imsides 100 tons of ore which it "Is claimed will yield SIOO to the ton. Dr. Samuel Birch, of the British Museum, says that one cannot study history intelligently without first understanding the pottery of the people. This may be true of original investigators, bitt hardly afiplies to the general public, who have no time for side studies. - The Levant Herald says that Air. Gladstone contemplates a visit to the plains of Troy next autumn to explore the Site of Dr. Schliemann’s discoveries.