Pharmacologia : or the history of medicinal substances, with a view to establish the art of prescribing and of composing extemporaneous formulae upon fixed and scientific principles; illustrated by formulae, in which the intention of each element is designated by key letters / by John Ayrton Paris.

Date:
1820
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Pharmacologia : or the history of medicinal substances, with a view to establish the art of prescribing and of composing extemporaneous formulae upon fixed and scientific principles; illustrated by formulae, in which the intention of each element is designated by key letters / by John Ayrton Paris. 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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    the progress of our knowledge, respecting the virtues of medicines, has met with others of a moral character, which have depri ved us, in a great degree, of another obvious method of research, and rendered our depen- dance upon testimony uncertain, and often entirely fallacious. The human understanding, as Lord Bacon justly remarks, is not a mere faculty of apprehension, but is affected, more or less, by the will and the passions; what man wishes to be true, that he too easily believes to be so, and I conceive that physic has, of all the sciences, the least pretensions to proclaim itself independent of the empire of the passions. In our researches to discover, arid fix the period when remedies were first employed for the alleviation of bodily suffering, we are soon lost in conjecture, of involved in fable; we are however unable to reach the period in any country, when the inhabitants were destitute of medical resources; the personal feelings of the sufferer, and the anxiety of those about him, must, in the rudest state of society, have incited a spirit of industry and research, to procure alleviation, the modification of heat and cold, of moisture and dryness, and the regulation and change of diet, and' habits, must have intuitively suggested themselves for the relief of pain, and when these resources failed, charms and amulets were the natural expedients of the barbarian ever more inclined to indulge the delu- sive hope of superstition, than to listen to the voice ofsober reason. Traces of amulets may be discovered in very early history; Galen affirms that king Nechep- sus, 630 years before the Christian era, had written, that a green jasper, cut into the form of a dragon surrounded with rays, if applied externally, would strengthen the stomach, and organs of digestion. In the progress of civilization, various fortuitous incidents,