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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    yields a case in point. Chloride of sodium, introduced from without, is decomposed in the stomach by a species of electro- vital affinity—the stomach forming as it were the positive, and the liver the negative, poles of the battery. Thus the necessary condition of acidity of the food during chymification is secured; and as the soda of the decomposed salt is eliminated with the bile, this acidity, unnecessary during chylification, is corrected in the duodenum. Then follow chemical explanations of the reducing and converting operations of the digestive organs on the principles of the food—of the completing processes carried on in the lungs, and at the extremity of the circulation—of the change of arterial into venous blood, by the conversion of the albuminous principle of the blood into the gelatin of the cutaneous envelope— of the evolution and maintenance of animal heat—of the various processes of secondary assimilation, by which the effete portions of the tissues are removed—of the extrication of carbon by the lungs and liver, and of nitrogen by the kidneys—the conversion of gelatin into urea, and of albumen into lithic acid—in one word, of all the alterations which take place during secretion and ex- cretion, as far as they have been explored. Secondly^ of the application of Chemistry to Pathology and Therapeutics. The early cultivators of Chemistry were mostly medical men, and made many attempts to explain the phenomena of disease by means of their favourite science. But their efforts were for the most part premature, and only brought discredit on the legitimate use of chemical reasoning. The human mind ap- pears subject to something like the mechanical law of action and reaction ; and the extravagant and fantastic hypotheses of Para- celsus, Van Helmont, and Sylvius, after a transitory reign, only left behind them that sensation of disappointment and disgust which attends expectation nnfulfillod, after being raised to the liighest pit<;h. The llunionil Pathology, whose history has, in modorn times, been intimately connected with Medical Chemistry, had a similar sway, and again fell into too great neglect at a period when