Massachusetts Spy And Worcester Advertiser

The Arts and Sciences.

From the Franklin Post.

Pulmonary Consumption.—The Boston Medical Intelligencer contains an account of a new mode of treatment for consumption and other diseases of the lungs, invented by Dr. Middleton, a distinguished English physician. Being himself affected with a disorder of the lungs, and having lost two promising children by pulmonary consumption, he directed his whole attention and studies to those diseases. All his other professional business was given up, and his investigations gave rise to the mode of treatment, which he is now communicating to the world gratuitously.

His theory is founded upon the absorbing power of the lungs, which is so great, that he states the lungs of a sheep will take up four ounces of water, injected by an aperture in the windpipe, in the course of a few hours, without occasioning any apparent suffering. Medicines, in substance or in a fluid state, as Dr. Middleton has proved by a variety of experiments, are carried into the circulation much sooner when thrown into the lungs than into the stomach. Dr. Middleton's plan then is, instead of loading the stomach with drugs, and debilitating the whole system for the cure of a local disease; to administer it directly upon the lungs, and supply the stomach with a generous though not too stimulating a diet. The medicines to be employed are calcined sponge, dandelion or stramonium for tubercles on the lungs, and myrrh and bark in more advanced stages of disease. These are administered by means of an instrument called an inhaler, which is a block-tin case, in which is a cylindrical wheel having bristles inserted in its side, and turned by a crank on the outside. At the top is a mouth-piece which conveys the preparation to the lungs. The substance to be inhaled is first reduced to an impalpable powder, and being put into the inhaler, is set afloat by the wheel. When the air of the box is sufficiently loaded, the patient closes the nostrils, while he makes a full inspiration from the mouth-piece of the inhaler, by which the powder is conveyed to the seat of the disease. This is repeated three or four times a day. The success that has attended Dr. M.'s own practice has demonstrated the superiority of his system to any other heretofore practised upon. He considers consumption a contagious disease, and cautions persons against inhaling the breath of those who are laboring under affections of the lungs.