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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    effectual batteries. It is an instinct in our nature, to follow the track pointed out by a few leaders; we are gregarious animals, in a moral as well as a phy- sical sense, and we are addicted to routine, because it is always easier to follow the opinions of others than to reason and judge for ourselves. “ The mass of mankind,” as Dr. Pay ley observes, “ act more from habit than reflection.” What, but such a temper could have upheld the preposterous system of Galen for more than thirteen centuries ? and have enabled it to give universal laws in medicine to Europe— Africa—and part of Asia ? What, but authority, could have inspired a general belief, that the sooty washings of rosin* would act as a universal remedy ? What, but a blind devotion to authority, or an in- superable attachment to established custom, and routine, could have so long preserved from oblivion the absurd medicines which abound in our earlier dispensatories? for example, the “ Decoclum ad Ictericos,” of the Edinburgh College, which never had any other foundation than the doctrine of signa- tures, in favour of the Curcuma and Chelidonium Majus ; and it is only within a few years, that the Theriaca Andromachi, in its ancient absurd form, has been dismissed from the British Pharmacopagiae. The Codex-Medicamentarius of Paris, recently * This practice of Bishop Berkley lias been ridiculed with great point and effect, in a pamphlet, entitled “ A Cure for the Epidemical madness of drinking Tar Water,” by Mr. Reeve ; in which, addressing the Bishop, he says, “ thus in your younger days, my Lord, you made the sur- prising discovery of the unreality of matter, and now in your riper age, you have undertaken to prove the reality of a universal remedy; an attempt to talk men out of their reason, did of right, belong to that author, who had first tried to persuade them out of their senses.”