在经验与科学之间:对1832年英国霍乱疗法的考察

Between Experience and Science: The Exploration of Cholera Therapies in Britain in 1832

1832年霍乱疫情的全面爆发对英国医学界构成严峻挑战。在这场突如其来的流行病面前,英国医学界不同群体全力投入到霍乱疗法的探索之中。改善血液黏稠、血流不畅的放血疗法,用药物催吐、催泻以清除体内毒素的排泄疗法,补充病患流失体液的补盐疗法,以热疗、起疱等为代表的刺激疗法等,成为医学界应对霍乱病症的主要手段。因受时代条件所限,1832年前后疫情期间的霍乱疗法,或是基于本土已有或外来防治腹泻、呕吐的医疗经验,或是基于对霍乱病症较为模糊的科学认知。尽管对于霍乱病患的对症处理疗效有限,但这种探索充分体现出游离于经验与科学之间的英国医学界所做的艰辛努力,由此也揭示出人类与流行病斗争的复杂性与艰巨性。

The outbreak of cholera 1832 on a full scale posed a serious challenge to the British medical community.In face of this sudden epidemic,different groups in the medical community had devoted themselves to the exploration of cholera therapies.Bleeding therapy to improve blood viscosity and poor blood flow,elimination therapy to remove cholera toxin by emetic and purgative drugs,saline injection therapy to replenish the loss of body fluid,stimulation therapy represented by heating and blistering,became most major therapies to combat cholera symptoms in British medical community.Due to the constraints of the times,the treatment of cholera during epidemics around 1832 was based either on existing local or foreign medical experience in the treatments of diarrhea and vomiting,or on a more obscure scientific understanding of the disease.Despite the limited effectiveness of the treatment of cholera patients,the exploration highlighted the hard work of British medical community which was drifting between experience and science,and revealed the complexity and difficulty of the fight of human beings against epidemics.