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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    inflicted, was probably Verdegris, and led to the dis- covery of its use as a surgical application. The inoculation of the small pox in India, Turkey, and Wales, observes Sir Gilbert Blane, was practised on a superstitious principle, long before it was intro- duced as a rational practice into this country. The superstition consisted in buying it—for the efficacy of the operation, in giving safety, was supposed to depend upon a piece of money being left by the per- son who took it for insertion. The members of the National Vaccine Establishment, during the period 1 had a seat at the board, received from Mr. Dubois, a Missionary in India, a very interesting account of the services, derived from superstitious influence, in propagating the practice of vaccination through that uncivilized part of the globe. It appears from this document, that the greatest obstacle which vaccina- tion encountered, was a belief that the natural small pox was a dispensation of a mischievous deity among them, whom they called Mah-ry Umma, or rather, that this disease was an incarnation of the dire God- dess herself, into the person who was infected with it; the fear of irritating her, and of exposing themselves to her resentment, necessarily rendered the natives of the East decidedly averse to vaccination, until a superstitious impression, equally powerful, with re- spect to the new practice, was happily effected, this was no other than a belief, that the Goddess Mah-ry Umma, had spontaneously chosen this new, and milder mode of manifesting herself to her votaries, and that she might be worshipped, with equal respect, under this new shape. Hydromancy is another superstition, which has incidentally led to the discovery of the medicinal virtues of many mineral waters; a belief in the divining