Substance of a lecture on the applications of chemistry to medicine : introductory to a chemical course in the Newcastle Medical School / by Dr. Glover.

  • Glover, Robert Mortimer, 1816-1859.
Date:
1842
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Substance of a lecture on the applications of chemistry to medicine : introductory to a chemical course in the Newcastle Medical School / by Dr. Glover. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    I'rout, furuish us with innumerable instances of the applications of Chemistiy ; and being unwilling to accumulate illustration, I shall conclude, under this head, by quoting the words of this author in the preface to his last edition, where he states that he invites the candid criticism of the experienced chemical patho- logist, who is alone capable of appreciating his labours. When we turn our attention to what Chemistry has done for the treatment of disease, and then consider what may be accom- plished through the resources of this ever-progressing science, we are astonished by the vastness of the subject. Chemistry is here useful by the discovery of new remedies, by the rules which it frequently furnishes for the administration of remedies, by the view which it aifords us of their medicinal action, and by the pre- cautions which it enforces for their combination. Even in the days of Paracelsus, Chemistry here shone supi-eme ; and it was by the employment of those remedies with which his chemical art furnished him, that this extraordinary being was enabled to over- turn the then existing superstitious veneration for the ancient authors. In the words of the learned Morhof, (which, on the Lrround stated, are alone applicable)— Magna tamen in ipso mentis vis fuit, magna arcanorum naturai cognitio, quo factum est ut medicinam in novam aliquam speciem transfunderet. Gloriari tamen German! hoc nomine possunt. Hujus enim arti- bus, peno tota schola medicorum Galenica de sua dejecta est dig- nitate. Quod viro illi contigisset in juventute literarum cultura, (juibus omasset suam doctrinam non majus habuisset Germania nomen. As instances of the benefit which the progress of Chemistry has conferred on Medicine, merely by the discovery of new remedies, nearly every article in the Materia Medica might be adduced. Look at the benefit wo derive from the recently-invented pro- f^esses by which the active principles of so many drugs are sepa- rated from others absolutely obstructive of our wished-for aim, and by which we can retain those active principles of uniform Htrcngth in forms incapable of alteration by keeping. The dis-