A manual of materia medica and therapeutics : including the preparations of the British pharmacopoeia (1867) and many other approved medicines / by J. Forbes Royle and Frederick W. Headland.

Date:
1868
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A manual of materia medica and therapeutics : including the preparations of the British pharmacopoeia (1867) and many other approved medicines / by J. Forbes Royle and Frederick W. Headland. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    classification, geographical distribution, and uses to man, are equally- essential objects of study to those who wish only to attend to agri- cultural or to horticultural pursuits, or to improving the breeds of animals. Even Human Anatomy and Physiology are often studied by those who desire only to become acquainted with the internal structure and functions of the body to perfect themselves as painters or as sculptors, or who desire to study the beauty and design dis- played in the works of the Creator. The strictly practical branches of professional study—of which the principles, however, require also to be scientifically studied—are embraced in the departments of Surgery, Medicine, and Midwifery, which elucidate the nature and treatment of diseases, both external and internal, as well as those peculiar to women and children, and of the process of parturition. To these is superadded Forensic Medi- cine, a complicated branch of study, as it is connected with every other, and requires a knowledge both of healthy and of diseased structure, as well as of the effects of deleterious agents on the con- stitution. The practical sciences require for their study and practice a complete knowledge not only of their own particular subjects and of the above-mentioned preliminary sciences, but also of the agents and substances, whatever be their nature, which are called Remedies, and which are employed to alleviate or to remove all departures from the healthy state, or what constitutes the disease.* A complete knowledge of Medicines comprises an acquaintance with their physical and chemical characters, their physiological action, and therapeutical effects. Medicines have been defined to be, all substances which have the power of modifying the actual state of one or more of our organs, and which possess this property in- dependent of their nutritive qualities. Hence they are adminis- tered in disease, for the purpose of curing or relieving. M. Barbier gives, as a distinctive character of remedies, the property of not being decomposable, nor of being easily transformed into chyle by the action of the stomach. Alimentary substances, on the contrary, are digested, and transformed into chyle. This, however, will not apply to all ; for some of the vegetable salts, as the acetates, citrates, and tartrates, are converted into carbonates in passing from the stomach into the excretions ; while it is hardly correct to say that other substances strictly nutritive, such as fibrin and albumen, are decomposed. It is clear that aliments are assimilated to our organs, and become an integral part of our bodies ; whdst remedies do°not contribute in a direct manner to nutrition. It is equally difficult to define remedies as distinct from poisons ; for, in tact, many of the same substances act either as remedies or as poisons, according- to the quantities in which they are applied to our organs. Before knowing how and when to prescribe a medicine, its nature ought to be thoroughly understood. A knowledge of medicines, * Medical Education, a Lecture delivered at King's College by Dr Koyle. Session 1S44-45.