Testimonials from James Sanders, M.D : member of the Royal College of Physicians, and lecturer on the practice of physic, as candidate for the professorship of the practice of physic, in the University of Edinburgh, to the Right Honourable the Lord Provost, and the other members of the Town Council.

Date:
[1821]
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Testimonials from James Sanders, M.D : member of the Royal College of Physicians, and lecturer on the practice of physic, as candidate for the professorship of the practice of physic, in the University of Edinburgh, to the Right Honourable the Lord Provost, and the other members of the Town Council. 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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    what is contained in my essay. I here add the pa- ragraphs, preserving the meaning entire, and even the expressions, as closely as the idioms of the two lan- guages permitted me to do, in translation. Dictionnaire des Sciences Medicales} par une So* cicte de Mteecins, et de Chirurgiens. Paris, 1814. Digitate, p. 457. After stating the universally adopted opinion with regard to the operation of di- gitalis, and noticing, that some anomalies had been remarked, the essayist thus proceeds : But these observations, more or less curious, are given by their authors, only as exceptions to the general rule; but it is not so, with the experiments made by Dr Sanders on himself, on several of his friends, ct and on a great number of persons labouring under u disease; all tend to prove, that the primary action of digitalis, is to accelerate the arterial pulsations. Though this doctrine is in direct opposition to the hypothesis generally received, it nevertheless bears all the characters, I would almost say, of certain- ty. The reasonings of Dr Sanders rest upon two thousand experiments, and agree perfectly with the observations of several respectable practition* ers; they are detailed by the author with that simplicity which wears the stamp of truth, and will carry conviction, I hope, to every unpreju- diced mind. Next, having quoted, from thejtrans- lation, my account of the effects of this medicine, he continues: Such was nearly the idea which I my- self had formed of the action of digitalis, but as ' this opinion was suggested only by a few obser-