TOGETHER WITH FORMULÆ FOR ALL THE SPECIAL BY EDWIN WOOTON, B. Sc. Senior Surgical Medallist, Charing Cross Hospital, Author of the LONDON: RIBLIOTHER FEB FR2 L. UPCOTT GILL, 170, STRAND, W.C. 1882. 151.92 390 PREFACE. I COMPLY with the custom requiring the infliction, by an author, of a preface on the unoffending reader; but I will be merciful, and, therefore, brief. The purpose of these chapters is sufficiently explained in the introduction. Briefly, it is not to tell people how to "make up," but to assist them in the removal of certain bodily imperfections. As I have stated in the work, local mischief is very often but an indication of the body's general condition. For this reason, measures having a purely local action will, in such cases, fail in effecting a permanent cure. Here internal remedies are indicated; but such cases should be treated individually, according to their special requirements. To prescribe an uniform dose of any preparation for mankind at large is to ignore the fact that all animals, including the genus homo, present, in their physiological functions, variations on the same type, and, while the same drug would produce the same class of action in any two human beings, under the same conditions, if the dose were adjusted to individual peculiarities, yet, were the latter rule set on one side, in many cases an excessive, in others a deficient or negative, result would follow. Besides this, the medicine itself may be improper, that is, unfit for any particular case, for the laity are generally unable to correctly diagnose their condition, and the taking of an unsuitable medicine may effect no inconsiderable amount of constitutional injury. To external remedies which work by their absorption producing systemic action the same remarks apply; but, in those cases where local remedies are used to produce a purely local action, there need be no hesitation as to the use of general formulæ, for there is both less involvement of the general system, and the parts being immediately under the patient's observation, an excessive, deficient, or other unsatisfactory result can be detected with ease at an early period, and measures adopted accordingly. Trinity College, London, November, 1881. EDWIN WOOTON. |