The History of Quinine

1895
How the Use of the Drug Supplanted the Practice of Bleeding Patients.
In 1830, when the French were conducting a campaign of conquest in Algeria, the mortality among the troops and colonists there was frightful. France was being continually called upon for fresh levies of men and youths to supply this terrible loss, chiefly through fever incidental to the climate and the life the French in Algeria were leading. At that time the practice of bleeding still prevailed. "Bleed them until they are white," was the injunction which Broussais, the medical master of the French, gave to his followers when the condition of the soldiers was reported to him. At Bona in one year, out of an effective force of 5,500 men, 1,100 died of illness in the hospital.

At that time the effects of a sulphate of quinine were known, but few physicians ventured to employ it. Maillot had interested himself in the new remedy, and going to Bona in the medical service of the government he resolved to see if it would not reduce the frightful mortality, which was 1 to every 3-1/2 men who entered the hospital. At first he employed the quinine merely as an adjunct to the bleeding. He soon found that bleeding was killing the men, and that quinine was saving them. Little by little he left off bleeding, to the great scandal of the medical profession. Exactly in proportion as the bleeding ceased the deaths in the hospital decreased. In two years the deaths fell off from 1 in 3-1/2 of all who entered the hospital to 1 in 26 and finally to 1 in 46.

Maillot quite naturally enough grew to be the opponent of bleeding, but he was so ceaselessly vilified by members of the medical profession that he became imbittered toward his colleagues. Nearly 30 years passed before Maillot saw the complete triumph of his ideas. Doctors continued to bleed their patients heartily for all manner of ills. But in 1860 Maillot was made commander of the Legion of Honor and chief of the medical staff of the French army, and his influence with others in bringing about a virtual revolution in the practice of medicine was fully recognized. — Pearson's Weekly.

Comment: Ask your doctor if bleeding is right for you!