The Collection of Medals to the Medical Services formed by Colonel D.G.B. Riddick

Royal Humane Society, large silver medal (successful), (R.H.S. Do. L. Hall vitam ob restitutam dono dat 1818) fitted within a glazed silver frame fitted with a loop suspension, extremely fine £220-260

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, The Collection of Medals to the Medical Services formed by Colonel D.G.B. Riddick.

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‘Case of poisoning by Opium, from which the patient was restored by Galvanism. Communicated by Dr Hall of Nottingham. “Half a dram of the pulvis ipecacuhanæ compositus of the London Pharmacopœia, containing three grains of opium, three grains of ipecacuhan, and twenty-four grains of the sulphate of potasse, was given early in the morning to an inhant about one year and a half old. The effects of the opium were soon apparent, and the child’s mother walked a distance of four miles to relate the circumstance, and to obtain relief. From some circumstances, which it is unnecessary to relate, nothing was done in this urgent case until eight o’clock in the evening. At that time Dr H. went over to visit the little patient, in company with a young surgeon, taking with him different medicines and a galvanic trough. On his arrival he found the infant apparently in a dying state, lying stretched out, affected with deep stupor, with an interrupted and failing respiration, an imperceptible pulse, and clammy coldness of the extremities and of the surface. It was in vain to attempt to make the infant swallow. Whilst warmth, frictions and other subsidiary measures were adopted, Dr Hall had recourse to the galvanic apparatus, making the galvanic energy traverse the thorax from the region of the heart to the opposite side, and to the pit of the stomach. He persevered for a very considerable time, thiry or forty minutes, without obtaining any earnest of success; he still, however, continued his efforts, and after a time, which appeared long, he began to observe some improvement in the respiration and in the pulse; by still further perserverance the fading embers of life were rekindled, and he eventually left the little patient in a hopeful state of amendment. This amendment continued progressive, and the infant ultimately recovered and lived. .....”’ (Taken from an entry in the R.H.S. Annual Report of 1820 which is believed to be related to the award of the medal.)