General therapeutics, or Principles of medical practice : with tables of the chief remedial agents and their preparations : and of the different poisons and their antidotes / by Robley Dunglison.

  • Dunglison, Robley, 1798-1869.
Date:
1836
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: General therapeutics, or Principles of medical practice : with tables of the chief remedial agents and their preparations : and of the different poisons and their antidotes / by Robley Dunglison. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    lives so far subsided, that they were both pardoned by the ex- ecutive of the United States*. This is perhaps the ne plus ultra of philanthropy,—certainly not of science. From all that has been said, it is manifest, that idiosyncrasy has much power in modifying the operation of medicines; and that it is consequently important for the practitioner to be aware of it; and it may not be amiss for him to make specific inquiries, where he wishes to administer such drugs as are apt to disagree with many individuals ;—of which opium and its preparations, and calomel, are perhaps the most prominent. 4. Habit. By this we understand an acquired disposition in the living body, become permanent, and as imperious as any of those primitive acts, which have been also, in another sense, denomi- nated habits. When a function is over and over again exerted to the utmost extent of which it is capable, both as regards energy, and activity, or if it be exerted beyond the ordinary extent, it becomes more and more easy of execution; the organ is better adapted for its production; and, it may become so habituated to this over exer- tion, that a real want may be engendered,—a ' second nature,'— and the individual may feel uncomfortable, unless the organ is subjected to the accustomed action. In the same way, by habit, the action of an organ may be diminished, until ultimately it is but little adapted for full action. The knowledge of these facts has led one of the most gifted and ingenious naturalists of the pre- sent time—M. De Lamarck—to affirm, that the habits of an ani- mal are not dependent upon its organization; but that, on the contrary, its habits, mode of life, and those of its ancestors have, in the succession of ages, determined the form of its body, the number and condition of its organs, and the functions and the fa- culties it enjoys :*-—a position which he has supported with much plausibility, and at the same time with much, that approximates to the reductio ad absurdum: as, for example, where he invokes the case of the reptiles, which in his view, as well as other ver- tebrated animals, had originally, according to the great plan of organization, four paws attached to the trunk. Serpents must consequently have had four; but having assumed the habit of creeping along the ground, and of concealing themselves in the grass, their bodies, owing to perpetual efforts at elongation, * ' Lecturc'on Medical Jurisprudence, p. 322. \ ' Philosophic Zoologique' nouv. edit. i. 235.