Another result is the new method of treating myxedema by the administration of thyroid glands—raw, cooked, desiccated, or in the form of extracts. Recently this treatment has been used in several cases with marked success, and already the air is full of rumors. One writer said a few months ago: “The success of this treatment is sure to create a ‘boom’ in animal extracts for various diseases.” He proved to be a true prophet, and we are in the midst of this boom.
It may perhaps be open to question whether there was need of any more “booms.” We have had “booms” in tuberculin, in coal-tar, in ovariotomy, if not in common sense. Some of them are still with us, though not in very good condition. After the boomers and the seekers after notoriety have done their worst with animal extracts, the final accounting will probably show some increase of positive knowledge in physiology as well as in therapeutics.
Bacteriology.
Bacteriology having now emerged from noisy babyhood into promising youth, it may not be amiss to ask how far therapeutics has been advanced by its discoveries and what the outlook is for the future. It has been alleged by some clinicians that the bacteriologists have been a little dictatorial, and have carried on their propaganda somewhat after the manner of the Salvation army. Be that as it may, the amount of conscientious and unremunerated work which has been devoted to the subject during the past twelve years is probably beyond the power of conception of any one man.
In spite of numerous mistakes, exaggerations and ludicrous attempts to re-organize therapeutics the bacteriologists have made great additions to our knowledge. The question of bacilliary disease is, however, enormously complex, and can not be settled by a few cultures and a few hasty deductions. Points that were supposed to be settled a few years ago are now under discussion again, and with regard to many of the problems it is still impossible to say just where the truth lies. Many thoughtful men have lately been turning their eyes from the microscope toward the bedside, and are asking themselves whether after all the condition of the soil is not fully as important as the germs which grow there, and they are consequently spending less time searching after germicides. One eminent physician predicts that the very language now used will be unintelligible jargon to future generations of germ seekers, and that the whole subject will have to be recast. Whether this be too strong language or not, it is doubtless true that we are, as yet, only on the threshold of this department of science, and that exact truth can be established only by a closer union of clinical medicine with bacteriological studies. The success of modern methods of preventing disease and the comparative failure of antiseptic and germicidal remedies in the treatment of well developed disease show that the human body is more than a test-tube, even though numerous theories have been tested therein to the discomfiture of the testers.
Creosote.
Creosote still refuses to move on into obscurity with the numerous “cures” for consumption which have recently made their exit from the therapeutic stage. On the contrary it is used to a greater extent than ever before, and the testimony as to its value gets stronger each year. It is interesting to note here that a writer who is by many regarded as the leading American authority on therapeutics feels justified in ignoring the whole matter in the last edition of his work recently published. Such is the perversity of the human mind—or at least of his human mind.
In giving creosote, it will be found that most patients take it in the form of sugar-coated pills more readily than in capsules or liquid mixtures. This statement is deliberately made after thoroughly trying every known method of administration in a large number of cases during a period of eight years.
Patients who have sensitive stomachs can frequently take, at first, only one or two minims per day; but by slowly and carefully increasing the dose, they eventually consume twelve to fifteen minims each day without suffering from gastric irritation.
The success of the creosote treatment is seen most plainly in those patients who have taken it uninterruptedly and in full doses for several years. Many of these people improve in health from year to year, without, however, losing all their symptoms.