Page:Restorative medicine - an Harveian annual oration delivered at the Royal College of Physicians, London, on June 21, 1871 (the 210th anniversary) (IA restorativemedic00cham).pdf/23

RESTORATIVE MEDICINE. 9 impermeable substance, to shield the inside tis- sites, instead of tearing them open to the bitter air, as in the horrible operation of dressing and cleaning. Again, with the expressed aim of limit- ing the resolution into their elements of diseased tissues, there are largely used anticatalytics, such as carbolic acid, the subsulphites of lime, soda, and ammonia, while several sulpho-carbolates, chlorine, etc., are administered internally. On the other hand, permanganates, whose oxidizing action is their distinguishing character, are given only when it is held wise to skip the dangers of the first stages of catalysis by hurrying them on. I do not know that I can cite alcohol as a new remedy, seeing it came into use so soon after the Deluge, but at all events our notions concerning it are new. Our fathers looked upon it as a fuel to life's lamp, augmenting heat, secretion, power, and vital action, and consumption in general. We find it to be in reality a damper to the flame. It has been used as a medicine, and as a good friend to poor humanity, throughout all these centuries; but now in a somewhat different class of cases, and with a better result, I trust. Though not a repairer of the waste, it is a conservator, and has thereby its own, though lesser, value. This